An EPIIC Vision to Evolve Project Integration, Innovation, and Collaboration with Broad Impact for How NASA Executes Complex Projects

Evolving Project Integration, Innovation, and Collaboration (EPIIC) is a vision defined to transform the way projects manage information to support real-time decisions, capture best practices and lessons learned, perform assessments, and manage risk across a portfolio of projects. The foundational project management needs for data and information will be revolutionized through innovations on how we manage and access that data, implement configuration control, and certify compliance. The embedded intelligence of new interactive data interfaces integrate technical and programmatic data such that near real time analytics can be accomplished to more efficiently and accurately complete systems engineering and project management tasks. The system-wide data analytics that are integrated into customized data interfaces allows the growing team of engineers and managers required to develop and implement major NASA missions the ability to access authoritative source(s) of system information while greatly reducing the labor required to complete system assessments. This would allow, for example, much of what is accomplished in a scheduled design review to take place as needed, between any team members, at any time. An intelligent data interface that rigorously integrates systems engineering and project management information in near real time can provide substantially greater insight for systems engineers, project managers, and the large diverse teams required to complete a complex project. System engineers, programmatic personnel (those who focus on cost, schedule, and risk), the technical engineering disciplines, and project management can realize immediate benefit from the shared vision described herein. Implementation of the vision also enables significant improvements in the performance of the engineered system being developed

A Method for Measuring Programmatic Dependency and Interdependency between DoD Acquisition Programs

There is currently no accepted method for quantitative measurement of acquisition program interdependency. While some methods exist for measuring dependency or interdependency at the component or system level, these methods do not translate well to program interdependency measurement. The objective of this thesis is to provide a model for measuring acquisition program interdependency accurately and quantitatively. The model presented in this thesis uses four Interdependency Factors to identify dependency relationships between programs. Specific Interdependency Levels are then used to measure the strengths of those dependencies. The model also accounts for measurement of dependencies upon programs that are not directly connected, i.e., programs that have a degree of separation from another program, and measurement of program criticality, or the extent to which a program is depended-upon. In this thesis, the measurement model is applied to an example program to measure program dependency characteristics. The results demonstrate that the model can be effectively used to identify and measure program dependencies. The model gives the program manager a quantitative tool to determine how much a program depends upon other programs and the potential impacts of those dependencies. With this information, program managers can better protect against vulnerabilities associated with interdependent effects from other program

Capability and Development Time Trade-off Analysis in Systems-of-Systems

Symposium Presentation (for Acquisition Research Program)Symposium PresentationAcquisition Research ProgramApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

The Economics Of System Integration: Toward An Evolutionary Interpretation.

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EMU and fiscal discipline: the end of the depreciation threat

Are the characteristics of the exchange rate regime relevant for the degree of fiscal discipline? What are the conclusions for fiscal behavior in Europe after the transition to EMU? These are the central questions that are analyzed in this paper from a theoretical point of view. After a general discussion of these issues, the optimization process of fiscal agents is analyzed in the context of a model based on the monetary approach to the exchange rate. The model conclusion is that monetary union leads to more fiscal discipline for high debt countries that used to have a benign neglect stance on the exchange rate. Contrasting to that, low debt countries that used to pay much attention to the exchange rate in the past will behave less disciplined in the future. --EMU,Exchange Rate Regime,Fiscal Discipline,Globalization,Public Debt

Speaking Risk With Our Project Managers

Effective communication between the system safety engineer and the project manager (PM) is an essential characteristic of good risk management in a robust system safety program. However, these two disciplines often use similar terms with disparate meanings that can lead to sub-optimal technical or programmatic outcomes. MIL-STD-882E defines “risk” as “a combination of the severity of the mishap and the probability that the mishap will occur”. The Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide, 6th Edition, defines “individual project risk” as “an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives”. It is incumbent upon the system safety professional to clearly communicate safety-related issues, hazards, risks and concerns using language most likely to be understood by the PM to ensure that he or she has the requisite information to make a sound programmatic decision. This paper explores the discrepancies between project risk management and safety risk management standard processes that hinder clear communication and can drastically impact program performance. We present methods to consider that will improve understanding between the system safety professional and the PM, along with two framework approaches for integrating safety and project risks

Customer Utilization Requirements and Their Impact for Space Station Capabilities

This is a summary of work presented to the Level B Space Station Program Office at Johnson Space Center related to customer requirements definition and their impact for Space Station design. The study was global in scope, querying the range of potential Station users for their ranked requirements for access to Station capabilities. User groups are identified based on their common set of functional requirements for Station services, and group needs were ranked according to level of utility for each unique Space Station capability. Analysis of the design drivers identified by the utility scores was conducted, resulting in a determination of which Station capabilities are in greatest demand, and where major technical commonalities and incompatibilities exist between user groups. This analysis provides a mechanism whereby NASA managers can evaluate the impact of design tradeoffs for the Station\u27s customer community. Major conclusions of the study include: 1) the need to base design choices on functional user group needs in order to account for currently unknown users; 2) emphasizing operational flexibility and minimizing life cycle costs in order to provide a user-friendly system; 3) scarring the Station to allow for potential external resource enhancements provided by international partners or commercial firms; and 4) establishing an IOC operating envelope based on the identified core capabilities with the greatest utility to the widest user community. In particular, this means optimizing for users who have a primary requirement for manned interaction on the Station, and providing for users whose requirements are not met within the IOC envelope through growth configurations or logistical support for their activities outside the core manned facility

GTTC Future of Ground Testing Meta-Analysis of 20 Documents

National research, development, test, and evaluation ground testing capabilities in the United States are at risk. There is a lack of vision and consensus on what is and will be needed, contributing to a significant threat that ground test capabilities may not be able to meet the national security and industrial needs of the future. To support future decisions, the AIAA Ground Testing Technical Committees (GTTC) Future of Ground Test (FoGT) Working Group selected and reviewed 20 seminal documents related to the application and direction of ground testing. Each document was reviewed, with the content main points collected and organized into sections in the form of a gap analysis current state, future state, major challenges/gaps, and recommendations. This paper includes key findings and selected commentary by an editing team

Agriculture and Income Distribution: Insights from a SAM of the Italian Economy

The paper presents the results of the first SAM analysis of the agricultural sector in Italy. A SAM of the Italian economy has been properly modified in order to focus the analysis on agriculture. Two type of analysis have been carried out: (i) a multiplier analysis, and (ii) an assessment of the distributive impacts of different agricultural policies. This paper proposes also a new method for disaggregating the institutional sectors and production factors in order to analyze income distribution within the economy, with special emphasis on the agricultural sector. Main results are: (i) "fully" decoupled income supporting schemes (transfers to agricultural households) are the most equitable interventions and determine a perfect targeting of the distributive effect on the relevant institutional sectors; (ii) "partially" decoupled income supporting interventions, as the ones implemented under the current CAP, are more effective than others in indirectly (i.e., through multiplier effects) generating positive impacts on the income of agricultural households; (iii) agricultural price support interventions show less desirable effects in terms of their distributive impacts: they are less effective as agricultural income-increasing policies and their distributive impacts are biased against poorer households both in agricultural and non-agricultural sectors.Social accounting matrix, agriculture, income distribution, Italy, Labor and Human Capital, R13, R15, Q18, E25,