Structural Complexity Analysis to Evaluate Technical Risk in Defense Acquisition

Abstract

The study of “-ilities” in systems engineering has been fundamentally connected to the evaluation of system complexity in recent years. Complexity has been inherent in all defense acquisition programs where technology and human organizations interface. Complexity can be inherent in design of a defense system/System-of-systems, at the organizational layers of defense systems, and in the environment, every now and then imposing its unpredictability or non-linearity to an acquisition program. Increased knowledge and understanding of defense systems complexity can shed light on some various unknown and emergent behavior of such systems, as well as guiding us to better solution sets when facing major decisions or challenges. The goal of our research is to identify, formulate, and model complexity in technical segment of defense acquisition programs, as the increased level of complexity contributes to increased fragility and potential failure of the system. In another word, complexity measure is an indirect measure of risk in complex systems. The future direction of our research aims at replacing a large portion of subject matter experts’ opinions on technical systems risk assessment, with actual complex risk measures and therefore improve the decision-making process more objective.