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Investigating Approaches to Achieve Modularity Benefits in the Acquisition Ecosystem

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Systems Engineering in Context

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Abstract

The US Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition strategy includes the encouraged adoption of modular and open systems architecture solutions, through its modular open systems approach (MOSA) initiative. The initiative is intended to enable rapid development, deployment, and evolution of military capabilities while reducing end costs. However, current high-level guidance lacks sufficient insights on reconciling the technical (associated with modularity) and business (associated with openness) components in the defense acquisition life cycle. Furthermore, the complex interdependencies between these components, involvement of multiple stakeholders, and complex incentive structures across the acquisition ecosystem make it difficult to pursue benefits associated with modularity and openness. This paper documents nascent research funded by the US DoD Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) on investigating approaches that facilitate adoption of modular and open strategies in pursuit of improved programmatic outcomes. Our research involves a combination of a multipronged knowledge acquisition strategies, to extract best practices, perceived risks, key enablers, systemic barriers, and other such practical knowledge artifacts associated with modularity and openness in the defense application. We then seek to translate these knowledge artifacts to a decision support framework that aims to better inform acquisition stakeholders on the impact that various MOSA-related decisions can have when pursuing intended benefits. We provide a discussion of MOSA and its vision, current approach insights, and future directions of this ongoing research effort.

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Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the US Department of Defense through the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) under Contract HQ0034-13-D-0004-0063. SERC is a federally funded university-affiliated research center managed by Stevens Institute of Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Navindran Davendralingam, Cesare Guariniello, Alexandra Dukes & Daniel DeLaurentis

Authors
  1. Navindran Davendralingam
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  2. Cesare Guariniello
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  3. Alexandra Dukes
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  4. Daniel DeLaurentis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Navindran Davendralingam .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Stephen Adams

  2. Department of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Peter A. Beling

  3. Department of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    James H. Lambert

  4. Department of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    William T. Scherer

  5. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Cody H. Fleming

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Davendralingam, N., Guariniello, C., Dukes, A., DeLaurentis, D. (2019). Investigating Approaches to Achieve Modularity Benefits in the Acquisition Ecosystem. In: Adams, S., Beling, P., Lambert, J., Scherer, W., Fleming, C. (eds) Systems Engineering in Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00114-8_49

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