Audit of the Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (DODIG-2022-085)

What We Did:

The objective of this audit was to determine whether Army officials effectively managed the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program to meet user needs.

What We Found:

Army testing officials assessed user acceptance from Soldiers who used IVAS during various operational tests and used the results of those surveys to make changes to the system. However, IVAS program officials did not define minimum user acceptance levels to determine whether IVAS would meet user needs. This occurred because Army policy did not require program officials to define suitable user acceptance levels. Procuring IVAS without attaining user acceptance could result in wasting up to $21.88 billion in taxpayer funds to field a system that Soldiers may not want to use or use as intended.

What We Recommend:

We recommend that the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology) develop Army wide policy requiring program officials to define suitable user acceptance measurements for testing and evaluation.

We recommend that the Program Executive Officer Soldier define clear measures of user acceptance levels to meet user needs before Soldier Touch Point 5 testing of IVAS. In addition, we recommend that the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology), as the decision authority for IVAS, verify whether the Program Executive Office Soldier meets established user acceptance measures and addresses Soldier identified issues before IVAS production.