With the recent changes in the environment of weapon systems acquisition, the systems development is becoming more susceptible to a variety of risks. To cope with this situation, US DoD has been emphasizing the importance of constantly applying the test and evaluation (T&E) process throughout the whole life cycle of the weapon systems. In particular, the safety requirements are called for attention while dealing with system risks. To this end, the present paper is aimed at studying the T&E process which incorporates the systems safety in weapon systems development. Analyzing and modeling the relevant processes has made it possible to achieve the objective. As a case study, the model results were applied to the development of unmanned aerial vehicles.

The weapon systems development has some distinct characteristics in that a big size of government budget (derived from national tax) has been expended frequently and the completion of the development projects seems to take long. Thus, the impact of the potential changes in the required operational capability on the development activities can induce some type of project risks. As such, proper management of project risk has been one of crucial subjects in the weapon systems development. Although a variety of methods can be considered, an approach based on the test and evaluation (T&E) process has been selected in this paper in order to appropriately handle those potential risks. In the study of the underlying T&E process, the safety consideration (for instance, explosiveness) of weapon systems is also included. To achieve the objective of the paper, a step-by-step procedure is first presented in the analysis of the T&E process. Then, to pursue some enhancement on the process, a set of necessary and useful activities are added in terms of risk and safety management. The resultant process is further analyzed and tailored based on a design structure matrix method. The case study of a tank development is also discussed.

Modern weapon systems are getting more complex in terms of the functionality and also the conditions on the environment and range in which they are deployed and used. Therefore, many development programs can easily be exposed to a variety of risks, resulting in delayed schedules and cost overrun. As such, effective means are necessary to keep the defence budget at an affordable level while competitive edges on technological aspects are retained. As one way to meet those need, modeling and simulation (M&S) methods have widely been used, particularly in the test and evaluation (T&E) process for weapon systems development. The result of M&S-based systems development should be evaluated by the verification, validation & accreditation (VV&A) process to assure keeping reliability at a desired level. On the other hand, due to the explosiveness, the weapons systems development naturally requires to consider safety issues in both the T&E and operational periods. The purpose of this paper is to improve the VV&A process by reflecting the safety requirements therein. To do so, the VV&A process has been analyzed and graphically modeled first and then safety elements have been incorporated effectively. The use of the improved process in the war ships development has also been discussed. Based on the process proposed and the consequent database constructed, the target system can be expected to benefit from reducing development risks while assuring systems safety.