Bottleneck Analysis on the DoD Pre-Milestone B Acquisition Processes

Abstract

Bottleneck Analysis on The current Enterprise Requirements and Acquisition Model, a discrete event simulation of the major tasks and decisions within the DoD acquisition system, identifies several what-if intervention strategies to improve program completion time. However, processes that contribute to the program acquisition completion time were not explicitly identified. This research seeks to determine the acquisition processes that contribute significantly to the time a program reaches Milestone (MS) B and provide interventions to improve program completion time. In order to solve this problem, this research uses critical path analysis to determine the bottleneck activities in the Pre-MS B processes using additional simulation analysis. Results show that the systems engineering processes are the bottleneck activities in Pre-MS B acquisition stage. Furthermore, this research then examines the effect of these processes by varying the mean completion times and having them occur earlier in the acquisition process. Potential policies are formulated from the results to further reduce program acquisition completion time.the DoD Pre-Milestone B Acquisition Processes