Systems 2020: Strategic Initiative

2010

The Department of Defense (DoD) increasingly faces a mix of relatively foreseeable and unforeseeable threat and opportunity profiles. This means that DoD technological superiority relies on rapid and assured development, fielding, and evolution of progressively more complex and interoperable defense systems. Meeting these challenges requires DoD to design and build an entirely new class of adaptive systems that allow the Department to operate with far greater speed and agility. Mr. Lemnios, the Director, Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E), requested a study of systems engineering research areas that enable agile, assured, efficient, and scalable systems engineering approaches to support the development of these systems. This report addresses the four highest-‐potential research areas determined by the study: Model Based Engineering (MBE), Platform Based Engineering (PBE), Capability on Demand(COD), and Trusted System Design (TSD). It elaborates each research area, characterizing them in terms of current state of the art and state of the practice, and identifies the most promising research topics. It then proposes next steps to create a DoD-‐wide Systems 2020 initiative based on a coordinated set of high-‐leverage, game-‐changing activities comprising systems engineering research, technology maturation, and pilot-‐based transition into practice.

National security and the future, 2021

Hybrid Threats and Wars in 21st Century - Making Society and Critical Infrastructure Resilient are extremely important for us to respond to different future threats and challenges. Defence leadership has acknowledged that they must make significant and urgent changes to its people, processes, organisations and culture if they are to keep pace with its strategic competitors and sustain its national security posture.

Disruptive Technology and Defence Innovation Ecosystems, 2019

Conclusion Disruptive Technology and Defence Innovation Ecosystems: The Need for Dynamic Capabilities C.1. Overall conclusion The changes brought about by the digital revolution, considered as a disruptive innovation [BOW 95], have attracted particular attention from public and private defence stakeholders. The objective of governments and defence companies is to renew military capabilities through the integration of new digital technologies into existing networks and weapon systems. In the long term, some analysts predict that the architecture of future combat networks will be composed of intelligent and autonomous systems, capable of collaborating with human agents to perform complex tasks. All application areas of military capabilities are concerned. Sensors, command and control systems, vectors, effectors, as well as logistics activities, military support and training are already affected by the development of robotics, artificial intelligence, computer simulation, nanotechnologies or neuroscience. In this context, the risk for traditional defence stakeholders is to undergo change rather than drive it, by not accurately anticipating the impact of new technologies on business models, professional practices and concepts of operations. As recalled [ASS 06: 218], disruptive innovation refers to "a radically new concept, process, or product that significantly transforms demand and needs expressed in existing markets and industries, disrupts Conclusion written by Pierre BARBAROUX.

Systems Engineering, 2015

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has recently revised the defense acquisition system to address suspected root causes hindering higher success rates. This article applies two systems thinking methodologies in a uniquely integrated fashion to provide an in-depth review and compelling interpretation of the revised defense acquisition system as put forth in January 7, 2015 DoDI 5000.02. Changes from the previous defense acquisition system are significant and may be cause for some cautious optimism in the United States. This article describes how the architects of the revised defense acquisition system have increased emphasis on systems engineering activities applied early in the lifecycle so that meaningful trade-offs between capability requirements and lifecycle costs can be explored as requirements are being written to ensure realistic program baselines are established such that associated lifecycle costs will likely fit within future budgets. Expressed as emerging systems engineering research questions, this article identifies several gaps that are likely to emerge as the defense acquisition community attempts to execute the new acquisition system.

2009

This paper proposes the use of a new Systems Readiness Level (SRL) scale for managing system development and for making effective and efficient decisions during the defense acquisition process. This scale incorporates both the current Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the concept of an Integration Readiness Level (IRL) developed by Stevens Institute of Technology. The paper describes the foundations for the SRL and how it is formulated; it also demonstrates the SRL's application within the defense acquisition process using a sample case with notional readiness values.

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2020

The forces that drive much of the transformation of Defense Innovation Systems are manifold. The economic structure and institutional organization supporting defense innovation have been altered by technological as well as political changes. Increasing competitive pressures, together with the growing complexity of knowledge and technology have also shaped how defense companies, military services and procurement agencies adapted their core business models, competences, and strategies in order to be capable of providing their customers with the innovative products and services they need. This contribution builds on a ISTE-Wiley edition's recently published book untitled Disruptive Technology and Defence Innovation Ecosystems ([BAR 19b]) that aimed at improving our understanding of the transformation of defense innovation systems, by focusing on three interrelated dimensions. The first dimension is concerned with changes affecting defense-related knowledge bases, in particular the development of dual-use knowledge and the increasing complexity of defense-related knowledge structures. The second dimension is related to technology itself with a particular emphasis on the disruptive impacts of certain technological trajectories emerging from the outside of traditional boundaries of the defense industrial base. The third dimension is connected to the evolution of military customers' doctrines and capabilities towards netcentricity and multi-domains command and control (C²), the latter having a structuring effect on defense innovation systems.

Interfaces, 2011

The purpose of the Blue Horizons study was to determine the capabilities and technologies in which the United States Air Force would need to invest to maintain dominant air, space, and cyberspace capabilities in the year 2030. The study used two methodologies, scenario analysis and multiobjective decision analysis, to evaluate 58 future-system concepts and 172 key enabling technologies. The paper outlines the study's key conclusions and recommendations to the Air Force, including recommendations on how ...

2004

Defense Horizons, 2003

forged with several key building blocks. The synergy among these building blocks is crucial in building a net-enabled force to operate globally. The shift is from platforms serving single-service roles to systems of systems that deliver capabilities in support of joint and combined forces operations worldwide. Transformation is focusing upon where joint forces and global capability are expected to be 20 years from now and working back to the present. This represents a significant shift in how the Department of Defense (DOD) would like to shape its industrial base. At the heart of the transformation effort is a key focus upon an ability to fuse data and deliver common operational pictures to the forces. 1 To do so will require a shift in the DOD acquisition approach. One idea is to increase the role for Joint Forces Command and emphasize the role of combatant commanders in acquiring fusion technologies. 2 Overview American force transformation is about building a new expeditionary model with flexible, modular forces that can be managed on a global basis to protect U.S. interests. Breaking the tyranny of geography on military forces is a key aspect to change. Transformation represents a shift in the demand side of the defense industrial business to provide for these new capabilities. The Department of Defense (DOD) is seeking system-of-systems management to deliver capabilities to the services and for joint military operations. This represents a shift from the past emphasis upon platforms and a primary focus upon service-specific technologies and programs. As the demand side of the equation has shifted, so has the supply side. Defense consolidation in the 1990s dealt with scarcity; now the newly emerged mega-primes are asked to play the role of lead systems integrators (LSIs) or system-of-systems managers to deliver capability to DOD for transformed operations. DOD moved to a different way of doing business before the transformation effort emerged as a core priority. Now that the transformation agenda is dominating the shift in the relationship between industry and government, working through LSI roles in shaping capabilities-based procurement will be especially important. Additionally, the new LSI and system-of-systems management model is shaping a new approach to allies. The new model can allow industry to shape new capabilities on a transatlantic basis. Rather than the old export-after-production model, the new LSI model, coupled with a transformation emphasis, leads to the shaping of new opportunities for developing capabilities before core series production decisions would be taken.