Learning from Programmatic

Failures

Paul Collopy

paul.collopy@uah.edu

Learning from Programmatic Failures

What is a Programmatic Failure?

Should we be concerned?

What can we do?

What is a Programmatic Failure?

Major Cost Overrun

A Year or More Delay in Schedule

Cancellation Due to Program or Performance

What is a Programmatic Failure?

Major Cost Overrun

A Year or More Delay in Schedule

Cancellation Due to Program or Performance

90% of Current NASA Programs80% of Current DoD Programs

2 of 2 Current NASA Programs80% of Current DoD Programs

Few NASA Programs30% of DoD Programs

Should We Be Concerned?

DoD Programmatic Failures Cost ~ $150 million per dayOn the order of the cost of the Iraq or the Afghanistan War

Pentagon estimates a $600 Billion LCC overrun for F-35 Space Station cost 6 times the original estimate,

excluding Shuttle Flight costs Space Shuttle cost 3.5 times the original budget

$200 billion could have funded a manned mission to Mars Overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope cost JPL

its Mars Exploration program

$200 B total overrun

Should We Be Concerned?

DoD Programmatic Failures Cost ~ $150 million per dayOn the order of the cost of the Iraq or the Afghanistan War

Pentagon estimates a $600 Billion LCC overrun for F-35 Space Station cost 6 times the original estimate,

excluding Shuttle Flight costs Space Shuttle cost 3.5 times the original budget

$200 billion could have funded a manned mission to Mars Overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope cost JPL

its Mars Exploration program

$200 B total overrun

We cannot manage complex design programs

What Can We Do?

Our systems engineering process has failed us

Biased cost estimates indicate an endogenous cost growth process

Although we focus our process and research on conceptual and preliminary design,

We need to fix the SE process for Detailed Design

Everything Is Fine at PDR

0 %

20 %

80 %

100 %

Concept Design

Detailed Design

Production Use and Dispose

Cost Committed

Cost Incurred

After illustration on the website of the Engineering Design Centre and Newcastle University

Prelim Design

Systems Engineering during Detailed Design

Systems Engineering is the process that guides, coordinates, and facilitates Design Engineering

Guidance for Complex Systems

Coordination for Optimal Design

Facilitation – stay out of the way!

Guidance – Preferences

Coordination – Consistent Objective Functions

Facilitation – Minimal restrictions, constraints, requirements

Research on SE During Detailed Design

The Renaissance in Systems Engineering

Systems Engineering Research has never been more critical to our nation’s future

We need radical (getting to the root cause and fixing it) solutions to the most pressing problems

This will necessitate re-thinking our current research agendae