Charles Skelton: “today, it is my pleasure to share with my colleagues a good news story, one about our Nation's military and, in…”

“today, it is my pleasure to share with my colleagues a good news story, one about our Nation's military and, in particular, our Army. It involves a materiel acquisition program first developed in the 1980's for Army soldiers. It is called MANPRINT, which stands for manpower and personnel integration. The MANPRINT program objective is to improve the performance of Army weapons and equipment through a man-machine total systems approach. That is, MANPRINT focuses on the interrelationship of the soldier and his or her weapon or equipment and the human requirements for maximizing system performance. In a nutshell, it does not make any difference if there is a tank that is capable of firing 10 rounds per minute if its crew can only operate it at three rounds per minute. Regardless of its technical capabilities, the tank is a three-round-per-minute tank due to the human factors that limit its output. This is the kind of problem MANPRINT addresses. MANPRINT is an umbrella term that refers to seven disciplines that are critical to optimizing the man-machine, total-system approach. They are manpower, personnel, training, human factors engineering, system safety, health hazards, and soldier survivability. The central idea is to integrate considerations of these domains continuously into the acquisition process.”