Supporting acquisition decisions through effective experimental design

Weapon acquisition is a very expensive process, especially in todayʹs cost reduction environment. Techniques must be used to conduct operational testing using a minimum of resources while not sacrificing the adequacy and credibility of the test. A coordinated use of a combat simulation and a design of experiment procedure, the Taguchi method, shows promise as an acquisition strategy esearch focused on the Javelin medium antitank system which just completed operational testing in the Fall of 1993 and was intended to give the Javelin Project Managerʹs office information regarding the probable outcome of critical design characteristics prior to the test. Using the Taguchi method, many different design parameters were analyzed at several different levels of performance The method reduced the number of trials required to obtain a desired level of statistical significance while still obtaining the necessary data for each parameter. Once the required number of trials were identified, the Janus combat model simulated the operational test trials. s suggest what weapon parameters are critical to the specific measures of effectiveness of survivability, lethality, and engagement range. In a broader view, this tandem use of an experimental design technique and a combat simulation can provide acquisition managers with insights on critical system parameters prior to actual testing.