Lead Systems Integration: A Key Enabler for System of Systems Engineering and Integration

Abstract

Lead Systems Integration (LSI) is an acquisition strategy that employs a series of methods, practices, and principles to increase the span of both management and engineering acquisition authority and control to acquire a System of Systems (SoS) or highly complex systems. LSI is effectively a marriage of program management and multiple functional disciplines which must work together cooperatively to assert and execute trade space in the SoS given multiple constituent system acquisitions. To successfully plan, develop, and manage an SoS, a comprehensive development, acquisition, and implementation strategy is required. Our previous research defined the LSI Enterprise Framework as a means to engineer and manage the capabilities and interdependencies of an SoS, that can be executed by the government LSI, across multiple systems, programs, and stakeholder levels. This paper highlights the results from our Fiscal Year 2018 Acquisition Research Program effort. It discusses the integration of the LSI with other processes, used by Navy System Commands (SYSCOMs), to engineer and manage SoS, and provides a blueprint for a more complete governance approach.