Evaluating Weapon System Maturity to Support Should Cost Initiatives 'Using System Readiness Levels and schedule maturity to forecast cost savings'

摘要

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) publishes annual reviews of selected weapon systems; and has done so for many years. This initiative was due in part to significant growth in program costs (many times leading to a Nunn-McCurdy~b breach) often due to the lack of technical maturity of proposed systems, subsystems or other elements. Similarly, Defense Acquisition guidance in Department of Defense (DoD) Instruction 5000.02 mandates a plan for Should Cost (SC) goals at the "Milestone A" review to support affordability and cost control guidance. GAO has implemented a "knowledge point" system that assesses weapon system technology maturity at each phase of the acquisition lifecycle (Milestone pre-A, A, B, etc.). While this approach provides insight into program risks, it lacks objective qualification and quantification of cost growth and schedule impacts. Quantifying the effort needed to mature technologies for weapon systems is desired to obtain more realism in weapon system cost estimates that will withstand time. To that end, we introduce an emerging technique to evaluate systems and their technology readiness using system readiness levels (SRLs). The method supports the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) better buying power initiatives (1.0, 2.0 & 3.0) to have confidence in meeting development and reduction in total ownership cost objectives. Obtaining accurate Government development cost estimates during program formulation and technology maturity (Pre-Milestone B) has always been required. They now have become paramount in the success (or failure) of programs to meet affordability goals. Sequestration is upon the U.S. Government sector, developing cost estimates that are credible, reproducible and defensible are even more visible. During program formulation there is much uncertainty; program management structures are unknown, cost drivers are not clear and program risks may not be well understood. System readiness levels (SRL) provide an objective metric that integrates technology and integration readiness levels (TRL, IRL) to provide more information to support accurate forecasts of the mission capability cost. Using information from the annual GAO "Assessments of Selected Weapon System Programs," knowledge gaps are identified with the knowledge point framework identified in the report. Using SRL techniques, cost estimators and analysts can enhance their forecasts to meet affordability and SC goals. We describe how using these methods can identify potential cost drivers and highlight risk areas (that might otherwise be overlooked) during program formulation. An example is provided to illustrate the method. Last, we discuss future research.