Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-237). / The effects of Sequestration on U.S. Defense spending in the mid-2010s serve as a reminder that complex defense weapons systems are funded by a finite budget. These defense systems have become increasingly complex over time, and with that complexity has come substantial cost. The ability to afford those systems, many of whose burgeoning lifecycle costs have far exceeded initial estimates, has been strained. The Nunn-McCurdy Act is the means of notifying Congress of cost overruns in major defense development programs, and often sets in motion program terminations. But it is, however, an incomplete means of managing a portfolio of systems. It addresses affordability, but does not assess the utility of the subject assets to the stakeholders, either as standalone assets or as part of a synergistic collection. Utility-at-cost provides a more useful figure of merit that can be evaluated objectively and unemotionally, not just in a static context, but over a range of possible future contexts-and not only for a single system, but also a collection of disparate systems and systems of systems. The Portfolio-Level Epoch-Era Analysis for Affordability (PLEEAA) method (Vascik, Ross, and Rhodes, 2015, 2016) builds upon established analytical techniques including Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration, Epoch-Era Analysis, and the Responsive Systems Comparison framework. It notably introduced elements of Modern Portfolio Theory, which hitherto were constrained to portfolios of financial assets like stocks and bonds. This research illustrates the general applicability of PLEEAA by exploring two case studies, the U.S. Air Force airborne Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance portfolio, and the U.S. space-based geospatial intelligence portfolio inclusive of both government-owned and commercial assets. On the whole, these case studies are "top-down" in nature, levying emerging and potentially disruptive technologies on the asset mix. A more rigorous analytical method would be to conduct the "bottom-up" or "as-is" case using only established assets, and compare the two results. Such an approach could illustrate the incremental and potentially synergistic behavior of new assets introduced to the portfolio design problem. / by Jason W. Dieffenbacher. / S.M. in Engineering and Management
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/118552 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Dieffenbacher, Jason W |
| Contributors | Adam M. Ross., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Integrated Design and Management Program., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering and Management Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Integrated Design and Management Program., System Design and Management Program |
| Publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | M.I.T. Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 263 pages, application/pdf |
| Rights | MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 |
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