Total ownership cost - system software impacts
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Authors
Naegle, Brad R.
Subjects
Total ownership cost (TOC)
Software
Operating and support cost
Sustainment cost
Developmental cost
Production cost
Software supportability
Post deployment aoftware support (PDSS)
Software
Operating and support cost
Sustainment cost
Developmental cost
Production cost
Software supportability
Post deployment aoftware support (PDSS)
Advisors
Date of Issue
2017-04-19
Date
Publisher
Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School
Language
Abstract
Department of Defense (DoD) software-intensive systems and the software content in other systems
will continue to grow and may dominate total ownership costs (TOC) in the future. These costs are
exacerbated by the fact that, in addition to contracted development costs, the bulk of software
sustainment costs are also contracted. All of these factors indicate that DoD system software will
continue to b a very expensive portion of TOC.
The software engineering environment remains immature, with few, if any, industry-wide standards
for software development or sustainment. The Defense Acquisition System (DAS) is significantly
dependent on mature engineering.
System software size and complexity are key indicators of both development costs and sustainment
costs, so initial estimates are critical for predicting and controlling TOC. Unfortunately, the
software size estimating processes require a significant amount of detailed understanding of the
requirements and design that is typically not available when operating the DAS without
supplementary analyses, tools, and techniques. Available parametric estimating tools require much
of the same detailed information and are still too inaccurate to be relied upon. Similarly,
understanding the potential software complexity requires in-depth understanding of the requirements
and architectural design.
It is clear that the DoD must conduct much more thorough requirements analyses, provide
significantly more detailed operational context, and drive the software architectural design well
beyond the work breakdown structure (WBS) functional design typically provided. To accomplish this,
the DAS must be supplemented with tools, techniques, and analyses that are currently not present.
Program managers for software-intensive systems must supplement the DAS processes to
• compensate for the immature software engineering environment
• gain sufficient detailed information to perform reasonable software size and complexity
estimates critical to understanding and managing system TOC
• complete the inventory of derived and implied requirements, including the
often neglected sustainability requirements, before the request for proposal (RFP) is issued
• provide more detailed system operational context, beyond what exists in most Operational Mode
Summary/Mission Profile documents
• obtain more realistic contractor proposals in terms of cost and schedule associated with the
software development and sustainment
• drive the software architecture for a more sustainable, less complex design
• monitor the software design process (metrics) to ensure the effort is progressing towards an
effective, supportable, and testable design supporting the warfighter.
The tools, techniques, and analyses presented in this research are designed to accomplish the tasks
outlined above and are compatible with the Systems Engineering Process supporting the DAS. They
also are designed to work together in a synergistic method to improve the software-intensive system
development and sustainment performance influencing system TOC. Combined, the tools, techniques,
and analyses provide a much improved understanding of the system and identify critical
attributes that the software developers need to know to design an effective and supportable design.
These tools help compensate for the immature software engineering environment, provide more
detailed information needed to perform size and complexity estimates, and provide detailed
operational context needed for proper software architectural design. They help produce superior
RFPs and garner more realistic contractor proposals. They provide processes for monitoring critical
software design activities and full test matrix crosswalks. All of these enhancements will help
more accurately estimate and manage software TOC attributes.
Type
Technical Report
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Graduate School of Operational & Information Sciences (GSOIS)
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
NPS-CE-17-042
Sponsors
Acquisition Research Program
Funder
Format
104 p.
Citation
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.