Measuring Defense Acquisition Capabilities with QFD

The rapid leap-frogging of technological advances and modernization of industrial processes often leave the military acquisition community quickly trying to adapt to ensure the most modern equipment and systems are acquired. Traditional requirement-based acquisition methods do not allow milestone decision authorities (MDA) to totally grasp test results and clearly perceive whether the developer designed a system or product to meet the actual operational requirements. Further, the final test reports do not accurately describe or reflect how the tested system and/or product measured up to its advertised or desired capabilities. This article aims to establish a relationship between the acquisition's requirements, performance metrics and the system or product capabilities that are desired by the user; and to provide a mapping tool to allow the MDA to easily understand what the actual capability level of any proposed, new acquisition is. This article will focus on the difficult area of test and evaluation and how to best present the testing evidence to the MDA so that a well-founded decision can be made and the truly best systems and equipment are acquired.