An analysis of traditional operational testing to project how testing will be conducted in the future

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze current operational testing and to alert the reader to how testing will be conducted in the future. This analysis is conducted from a tester's point of view and is targeted at program offices so that Program Managers will be able to ensure that beneficial operational testing is conducted on their programs. The thesis also provides a detailed description of current and future systems used to instrument development systems, analyze the test data, and produce a final test report. It also provides a detailed analysis of a testing tool called Model-Test-Model (M- T-M). The goal of M-T-M is to save the Army time and money by using a validated model to provide operational test data. Finally, the thesis provides an analysis of the changes that will need to be made in the T&E community as a result of a new defense environment. These areas include the need for minimizing duplication between development and operational testing, using modeling and simulation, and taking advantage of other areas where testing costs can be reduced. Operational testing, User testing, Model-test-model, Test instrumentation, Real-time casualty assessment, Future testing