Up to $49.1M to IDT for Software Testing Product for Submarine Weapon Systems
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Small business qualifier Innovative Defense Technologies (IDT) in Arlington, VA received a $49.1 million indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for software development and engineering services in support of the automatic test and re-test (ATRT) product, which will test software on naval weapons systems.
ATRT [pdf] is a Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) effort whose objective is to leverage commercial automated testing best practices to reduce overall system development testing costs, maintain or improve software product quality, and shorten the software certification timeline.
The contract will fund development of the ATRT product – which IDT estimates will cut software testing costs by 25% – for automated testing of submarine combat systems for all classes of submarines currently in the fleet and under development…
Innovative Defense Technologies estimates [pdf] that 60% of the time and cost in developing new weapons system comes from software testing.
Current testing methods, according to a IDT briefing, consume at least 1/2 and often up to 2/3 of the time required for a new capability to be introduced to the fleet, with the other 1/2 to 1/3 of the time used for requirements and development. For a baseline upgrade to a naval system that required 3 years to go from start to delivered operational capability, results show that at least 1.5 years and up to 2 of the 3 years were spent on testing for a typical system, the briefing said.
The ATRT product cuts this time and cost by providing automated software testing capability, including a testing framework, automation engine and reporting features. IDT notes that ATRT is designed to be introduced at any phase of a program, uses existing interfaces and documentation, and applied to as much or as little of the testing program as required.
IDT will perform the ATRT development work in Arlington, VA and expects to complete it by October 2014. Contract funds in the amount of $775,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. NAVSEA’s Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division in Newport, RI manages the contract (N66604-10-D-0037).
