TEARS brings clarity, strategic decision-making to ATEC test and evaluation assets

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Maryland – Keeping an accurate and organized account of all test and evaluation (T&E) assets across the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) enterprise isn’t easy.

ATEC currently has almost 4,000 assets — ranging from test chambers and radars to cranes and software — that are spread across ATEC’s eight subordinate organizations nationwide, enabling the command to conduct its mission.

Chris Monahan, acting capabilities division chief within the Directorate for Capabilities Integration (DCI), recalled the difficulty of keeping track of the asset inventory across ATEC.

“The challenge was and still is being able to properly see ourselves,” he said. “There was limited visibility of the types of assets that existed across the enterprise. What we are finding is there are ways to optimize the subordinates’ asset inventory and develop efficiencies in how we can fund common instrumentation requirements.”

Without a standardized and centralized approach, ATEC subordinate organizations often worked in silos, leading to inefficiencies and difficulties in making fully informed resourcing decisions.

ATEC needed a better means to provide a good, organized sight picture of T&E assets across the command, and the Test and Evaluation Asset Repository System (TEARS) was the solution.

Old way: Outdated and fragmented systems

Previously, ATEC relied on two legacy systems — the Technology Development and Acquisition Program (TDAP) and the Test Facilities Register (TESTFACS) — to collect investment and sustainment requirements from ATEC subordinate organizations. Both systems were approximately 30 years old.

Unfortunately, decision makers struggled to compare and prioritize projects due to inconsistent categorization and limited visibility across the command.

“As decision makers, we were trying to review TDAPs and compare projects from the different subordinate organizations to figure out which one(s) we should fund,” Monahan said. “But when you started looking at the requests, it was like you were comparing apples to bananas, making it difficult to determine which requests were the most important.”

Monahan shared how asset groupings contained inconsistencies. For instance, radars could be grouped with data acquisition systems instead of radars being grouped with other radars, making it difficult to track the health and sustainment needs of assets across the enterprise.

The solution: TEARS – a centralized, authoritative source for ATEC T&E assets

A group of ATEC subject matter experts saw the need for a more modernized and standardized approach and developed TEARS to replace TDAP and TESTFACs.

Development began in April 2023, and a minimum viable product was available by June 2023. While TEARS has made continued progress over the last two years, there are many features and other requirements that are still necessary to ensure ATEC has the proper visibility over its T&E capabilities.

TEARS is a resourcing application that enables ATEC to identify and group T&E assets that are used at the test centers. In other words, TEARS gives an overall picture of what ATEC has and doesn’t have across the enterprise at an asset level, rather than a grouping of different assets that typically showed up in TDAP projects, which were test center investment requests. This improved capability enables ATEC leadership to make informed resource allocation decisions.

TEARS users interact with a Power App that is connected to a database located in the ATEC Data Mesh. The entire command can view the TEARS Power BI reports via the TEARS Microsoft Teams page.

But ultimately, TEARS is much more than a database. It’s a decision-making tool that ensures that ATEC is investing in the right capabilities to make sure the command is aligned with future needs and Army priorities.

“The whole TEARS architecture is breaking down our capabilities into assets at a much more granular level so we can see ourselves better for what we have and what we need to be able to do our T&E mission,” Monahan said.

TEARS in action: Road show implementation

To successfully roll out the TEARS initiative, the ATEC team launched a multi-phase implementation strategy.

In summer 2023, DCI representatives went to every ATEC subordinate organization to demonstrate how to conduct data entry. From summer to November 2023, the team also held biweekly TEARS training sessions on Microsoft Teams for anyone to attend and ask questions about TEARS and the data entry process.

In fall to winter 2024, DCI representatives traveled to every subordinate organization and met with resource management personnel to discuss funding allocation and execution.

Future of TEARS: ATEC’s vision for capability management

TEARS initial operational capability was achieved in June 2024, but full operational capability is event driven and will be achieved once all requirements and features are available.

While TEARS has already brought significant improvements in visibility, investment prioritization and sustainment planning, the journey isn’t over. The system continues to evolve with new features and enhancements aimed at increasing automation, standardization and enterprise-wide adoption.

For more information or to gain access to TEARS reports, ATEC employees can join the ATEC TEARS Microsoft Teams page and explore the latest updates in Power BI.