STUDY OF COST OVERRUN AND DELAYS OF Department of Defense (DoD) 's SPACE ACQUISITION PROGRAM

摘要

Defense and Aerospace Systems Acquisition projects, just like any other Large-Scale Complex Engineered Systems (LSCES) experience delays and cost overrun during the acquisition process. Cost overrun and delays in LSCES are due, in part, to high complexity, size of the project, involvement of various stakeholders, organizations, political disruptions, changes in requirements and scope. These uncertainties, due to the exogenous factors, have cost the federal government billions of dollars and delays in completion of the programs. Cost estimation of federal programs is usually based on previous generations of systems produced and almost all the time the costs are underestimated. Underestimation of the cost of the programs is an endogenous factor, which results in cost overrun for any program, the behavior of the cost escalation is pre-forecasted to be normally distributed, but due to the cost overrun, the cost escalation curve may be skewed. In this paper, the authors will be studying the cost escalation and time delays of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF), a DoD's space acquisition program. The distribution of the cost and time can aid in understanding the effects of endogenous factors influencing the cost overrun and the effect of change in requirements during the acquisition process. This data will serve as a foundation for further research to create a framework, which will be used, in better forecasting of the cost of the acquisition of the programs.