Australia’s independent trusted advisors; training the future T&E workforce

The DSR themes of accelerating acquisitions and adopting disruptive technologies highlight the need for Australia to generate a skilled workforce of T&E professionals.

By Tim Grabert, Nova Systems Test & Evaluation (T&E) Capability Lead

The ability to generate and sustain a workforce of Australian Test and Evaluation (T&E) professionals - who have the practical skills, knowledge and experience to test the integrated systems and disruptive technologies needed to ensure our national security - is an issue of national importance.

In the context of our current strategic situation, and as the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) sets out, the ability to rapidly introduce disruptive technologies into service by harnessing close partnerships between industry and government must be prioritised.

Furthermore, the DSR also urges Defence to adopt an acquisition approach that emphasises achieving minimum viable capability in the shortest possible time.

Implementing the approaches laid out in the DSR will require a sovereign and sustainable workforce of T&E professionals, who are capable of keeping-pace with increasingly complex technologies and future-focused joint-warfare capabilities.

Adding to the challenge of generating and sustaining a highly skilled T&E workforce, is the pressing need to upskill Australian T&E practitioners to face the challenge of testing complex systems of systems (a collection of multiple, independent systems in context as part of a larger, more complex system). The ability to test a system of systems, whether physically or in a simulated environment, is an enabling process to achieve joint force assurance.

Changes to the skills and competencies needed by T&E practitioners is also being driven by a digital engineering revolution. This revolution is characterised by a shift from the traditional design-build-test methodology to a model-analyse-build methodology (US DoD Digital Transformation Strategy 2018).

Modern T&E practitioners have now found themselves with a new test objective beyond simply testing to understand complex systems. Modern T&E practitioners must also be capable of designing and executing testing for the purpose of validating the synthetic models used to simulate the system, or indeed systems of systems.

There are three readily identifiable areas for investment that would yield rapid improvements in preparedness and sustainability of the Australian T&E workforce:

Firstly, better partnering between defence and industry to ensure the current workforce of T&E professionals is retained in between project cycles, especially in areas where deep platform-level and domain T&E expertise currently resides.

Secondly, better collaboration between industry, defence, and academia to accelerate the uptake of model based methods and digital mission engineering tools in the T&E community, and having these methods recognised as acceptable means of creating and delivering test evidence once the underpinning models are sufficiently validated.

And lastly, better solutions for training the future T&E workforce here in Australia, under Australian conditions, and thereby breaking our reliance of foreign training institutions to create our future T&E leaders.

As leaders in T&E for the past 23+ years, Nova Systems recognised that there was no single integrated training solution available in Australia that used real-world mission systems to teach T&E practitioners how to apply scientific test and analysis techniques (STAT), design of experiments (DoE), digital engineering skills, and validated modelling and simulation tools in the context of systems-of-systems T&E.

Recognising the need to build a sovereign and sustainable workforce of T&E professionals capable of independently testing systems of systems, Nova Systems elected to invest heavily in the creation of an Advanced Test and Evaluation (T&E) Practitioners Course. This in-country training solution reflects best practice in T&E and covers the skills, knowledge, and practical experience for those with responsibilities to assure complex systems of systems. The course is world leading in the way it integrates modelling and simulation with T&E skills training, and will create true sovereign capability directly aligned to meeting our stated national ambition.

The course emphasises the use of scientific methods to plan and conduct testing on complex uncrewed systems in the maritime, land and air domains. Students will gain firsthand experience in applying advanced concepts such as the design of experiments (DOE) and Digital Mission Engineering methods to plan and conduct testing at industry leading test facilities. A highlight of the course is the practical experience students receive in using T&E methods to validate the results of Mission Engineering simulations.

Our broader investment in the complimentary fields of Digital Mission Engineering and Model-Based Systems Engineering is not only introducing greater technical rigour into T&E activities, it’s also empowering our future T&E workforce by providing them with innovative tools, resources, and opportunities to explore and apply their skills.

These data-centric and model-based approaches to engineering and capability realisation means that all members of the team can securely access the latest project data in real time, therefore enabling deep collaboration between junior and senior members of the team. In FY 22-23 alone, we have provided digital engineering skills training to 132 Nova Systems technical professionals to ensure all members of our team are able to collaborate using these powerful digital engineering tools.

Harnessing the power of a data-centric and collaborative approaches to engineering is another way Nova Systems is speeding-up the introduction into service of disruptive capabilities for the warfighter.

As truly sovereign, digitally-enabled, global leaders in T&E, Nova Systems is well placed to support our future leaders in T&E and ultimately, help keep our nation and region safe and secure now, and for our future generations.

*Nova Systems is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) and has delivered specialised training to more than 2,700 Australian technical professionals including the delivery of the nationally recognised Certificate IV in T&E and Diploma of T&E.