Combining Technical and Business Ingenuity to Create a Robust and Adaptable Marketplace that Anticipates, Meets and Exceeds Customer Needs

摘要

A NASA Task Force has conceived a provocative concept for a supply/demand framework that (1) supplies the Agency's strategic business units with commercial, reusable, cross-cutting products and services that appear unique, but are not, and (2) enables the business units, as paying customers, to demand faster, better, cheaper" products and services for planning and conducting space activities. The concept provides for proactive matchmaking to benefit both the supplier and customer communities. Supplier benefit would be measured by the opening up of new markets, particularly for the non-traditional aerospace companies, with genuine cross-cutting product lines. Customer benefit would be measured by NASA's incentive to become smart buyers and influence the marketplace to provide products and services that anticipate, meet and even exceed their needs. Further, by acknowledging common functionality and similarities in requirements across the customer business units, NASA could disengage from the current practice of spending public funds for unnecessary duplications, such as building and buying unique products and services for similar functions. The building and buying of products and services that appear unique, but are not, are achieved via the assembly of bona fide building blocks, derived from first principles. Engineering acumen is required to identify the right set of building blocks that can be assembled on customer demand. Entrepreneurial prowess is required for creating a commercial, reusable and cross-cutting supply chain. This paper describes the technical and business ingenuity employed to motivate NASA to participate in a market-driven supply/demand framework. Also discussed is the applicability of this framework for better integrating space activities into the economic mainstream.