Interoperability risk mitigation through the application of operational capability based engineering

Abstract

We are interested in investigating an operational system of systems engineering approach to the resolution of interoperability issues discovered after system deployment. Operational system of systems engineering focuses on the engineering of systems in an end to end mission thread context. Such methodology shifts the acquisition focus from simple 'box engineering' to the behavior of systems in their operational ecosystem. This paper proses a Capabilities Based Engineering Framework (CBEF) to provide a methodology that will deliver operations focused enterprise requirements in addition to traditional systems requirements. Capability based approaches are used to identify and understand interactions, patterns, structures and properties of the end to end architecture. A System of Systems (SoS) refers to an integrated package of individual solutions that interoperate to provide a required capability. In addition to interoperability requirements, an analytically based operational capability process results in the identification of capability gaps for a given end to end mission thread. The resulting capability gaps become expressed in terms of functional requirements, interaction requirements and performance requirements for the optimal "pack" of systems and distributed systems.