Integrating Model Based Engineering and trade space exploration into naval acquisitions

Abstract

The Navy Acquisition force is faced with designing, procuring, and managing some of the most complex systems and technologies imagined. Balancing a shrinking and fickle budget environment with a program that has dynamic requirements and scheduling pressures only complicates this already difficult job. While developing these increasingly complex systems, major programs often face decisions without a sufficient analysis on a performance-versus-cost tradeoff. To surmount these challenges, the Navy must look at how industries excelled in similar environments. The concept of Model Based Engineering (MBE) is introduced as an approach that could move Navy Acquisition from document-centric to model-centric, enabling efficiency and confidence in design, as demonstrated by some industries. MBE is the practice of bridging models together from requirements to functions, for analysis, design, and verification of a system throughout the lifecycle. A tenet of MBE is model and design validation throughout development to ensure system requirements are met at delivery. Ultimately, the ability to understand and know the effects of changes in a subsystem on the overall performance can vastly improve a system's development. Through the practice of MBE, more confident design and acquisition decisions can be made earlier in the lifecycle. MBE involves pushing coordination and integration of subsystems as early in development as possible. Applying MBE is demanding but, done successfully brings major benefits, such as reducing expensive rework late in the lifecycle. Succinctly put, MBE enables: Objectively evaluating the design space, Choosing the right alternatives, and Building the system right the first time. Three components comprise the research presented in this thesis for operationalizing those MBE enablers for the DoD. The first component summarizes some of the MBE research to date. The second component provides an outline for establishing an MBE design and acquisition framework. Lastly, two MBE trade studies will demonstrate how a comprehensive evaluation of the trade space can lead to confident acquisition decisions.