Increasing Development Cost Estimate Accuracy of Complex Systems using Advanced Tools: 'Using System Readiness Levels and schedule maturity advancement to provide defendable cost estimates'

摘要

Estimating the maturity level and development cost of a system or System-of-Systems (SoS) early in program development is difficult. Often, detailed information at the subsystem or component level is limited and the integration difficulty between systems is unknown. Assessing the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of a program using traditional methods often provides optimistic TRL forecasts at program initiation. Our approach and analyses use System Readiness Levels (SRLs) that integrate multiple TRLs and Integration Readiness Levels, as well as the evaluation of TRL time and cost to mature that provides a framework to forecast accurate baseline program costs. We discuss each element of our approach and then provide an example to demonstrate how to apply the processes, tools and results to other system applications and cost estimates. Finally, we discuss future work to add fidelity to the framework.