System development is hierarchical, and the automotive industry has taken advantage of this hierarchy to leverage component and sub-system level testing to ensure that failure modes are discovered early in the development process. Assessing a system to determine the appropriate subsystem or component tests to perform is an expert process that takes a range of inputs into consideration. A tool that systematizes these inputs and assists with evaluation of tradeoffs to optimize subsystem test specification to meet program needs would allow the Army to realize the same cost time and risk savings that the automotive industry sees. Additionally, reliability test results need to be related to system reliability calculations in order to determine reliability improvements, provide the program manager with an ROI for test costs and adjust the overall system reliability model. System level testing is still necessary to determine integration issues, and must also be able to be efficiently specified, utilizing a Design of Experiments approach to test the appropriate vehicle variants over the most productive terrains to minimize testing while maximizing coverage.
