Affordability Modeling in an Uncertain Environment

摘要

A software prototype for AADA (Affordable Acquisition Decision Aid) has been developed which addresses S&T investments. The system achieves the following goals: the ability to determine near-optimal acquisition strategies in the presence of uncertainty concerning many factors that define an acquisition scenario; the ability to estimate the overall utility of a collection of assets in terms of their mutual cooperation in meeting high-level Navy objectives; the ability to recommend acquisition strategies that employ affordability constraints in conjunction with the above; the ability to assist the user in balancing investments across objectives; a simple database structure in which descriptions of acquisition scenarios are stored; finally, a network-centric user interface for accessing and controlling the functions of the system remotely via a web browser. Thus, we have developed and demonstrated a software system to support affordable acquisition decisions, while addressing uncertainty with respect to expected system performance, system cost, future threats and their impact on future force requirements, as well as uncertainty in future budgets.