A Systems Complexity-based Assessment of Risk in Acquisition and Development Programs

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Author
Nilchiani, Roshanak Rose
Pugliese, Antonio
Enos, James
Date
2019-01-18Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Development and acquisition programs of cyber-physical systems can often
encounter cost or schedule overruns due to the complexity of the system. It has been
shown that certain amount of system complexity is related to the system functionalities
(effective complexity), whereas excessive complexity is related to unnecessary intricacies
in the design (apparent complexity). While the former is necessary, the latter can be
removed through precise local redesign. One of the major challenges of systems
engineering today is the development of tools, quantitative measures, and models for the
identification of apparent complexity within the system.
This technical report has the goal of presenting our research results during last
year on evaluating and measuring the structural complexity of the engineered system,
and does it through the analysis of its graph representation. The objective of this research
has been to mathematically formulate and manage the relationship between the
quantitative complexity level of an acquisition or engineering development program (at
any point in lifecycle) and its relationship to the increased actual technical as well as
programmatic risk respectively. The use of the concepts of graph energy and other
spectral invariant quantities allow for the definition of an innovative complexity metric.
This metric can be applied knowing the design of the system, to understand which areas
are more in need of redesign so that the apparent complexity can be reduced.
Considering the positive correlation between complexity and risk, and complexity
and cost, this technical research report presents quantitative measures of the complexity
of the system of interest. A set of 12 metrics has been developed and applied to a
software system and a defense system of systems. Validation of the metrics has been
achieved through human experiments.
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.NPS Report Number
SIT-SE-19-027Collections
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