October 26, 2007
The Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation is responsible to determine whether new weapons systems are effective and suitable for combat. The reports to the Secretary of Defense and the Congress must occur before a major defense acquisition program can begin full rate production. There is a notable trend among recent reports to find systems effective but not suitable. The determination is often because systems are not reliable. This presentation discusses the causes of the situation, analyzes the consequences in terms of life-cycle cost, and reports on investigations on the return-on-investment in reliability. It also reports what steps the Department is taking to correct the situation.
Dr. Ernest A. Seglie is science advisor, Operational Test and Evaluation, Office of the Secretary of Defense. He provides scientific and technical guidance on the overall approach to Department of Defense (DoD) evaluation of the operational effectiveness and suitability of major DoD weapon systems; provides technical review of test reports; and serves as chief technical advisor to the director, DOT&E. He holds a BS from Cooper-Union in New York and his PhD is in theoretical physics from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He previously worked at the Institute for Defense Analyses and has done research and taught physics at RPI and Yale.