Systems Engineering Re-Energized: Impacts of the Revised DOD Acquisition Process

The U.S. Department of Defense acquisition process has gone through a decade of change intended to improve war-fighting capabilities, to field products with a shorter cycle time, and to lower system life-cycle costs. The intensity of change has increased during the early 1990s in response to the shortcomings of prior changes to correct acquisition problems and to deal with declining budgets, changing threats, and reduced manpower. The focus of this article is on the major changes taken to re-energize systems engineering. In addition, issues are highlighted that have resulted from several technical documents under revision at the same time without a formal integration or lead effort. This article calls for harmonization to ensure that conflicting signals are not given to industry by the several different standards under revision. Coordinating the different standards under revision is imperative if the rising expectations of defense and public leaders are to be realized in an environment of shrinking manpower and fiscal resources.