Re-Architecting the DoD acquisition process : a transition to the information age

The military is the midst of significant change, due to the DoD transformation guidance and movement to Network-Centric Warfare/Operations. Unfortunately, both the guidance given, roadmaps produced and the level of espoused support for the transformation have caused fundamental change to occur slowly and at increasing expense. The military material development process was designed around a platform-centric system and worked well, but now the information age is causing a move to network-centric systems. This fundamental shift is not aligned with the DoD development process and reform will require broad changes in both organization and policy. This paper reviews the NCW Transformation goal, the DoD transformation guidance and compares them to the Transformation Roadmaps of the Army, Navy and Air Force. These guidance documents are then compared with actual transformation changes and the associated factors effecting the change, using J. Forrester type system dynamics models. The systems dynamics analysis studies numerous transformation factors for their effects and yields recommended alternative development architecture.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Brown, Kevin M., S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Donna H. Rhodes.

• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34628

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34628