Research Summaries

Back Assessing Risk of COTS Software for Open Architecture-Based US Navy Weapon System Acquisition Programs

Fiscal Year 2009
Division Graduate School of Operational & Information Sciences
Department Computer Science
Investigator(s) Luqi
Sponsor Naval Special Warfare Command (Navy)
Summary New weapon systems being acquired by the Department of Defense (DOD) are being based on the idea of Open Architecture (OA) which is a business and technical strategy for acquiring and maintaining interoperable systems. One of the main risks associated with implementing OA successfully is the management of risk associated with Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software. Using COTS software has many benefits including a reduced development cost, reduced integration timelines, and reduced impact to customer during the initial integration phase. COTS software risks relative to naval weapon software acquisition include actual software effectiveness, lack of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on the acquisition team, increased vulnerability during integration with other systems, difficulty obtaining Weapon System Explosive Safety Review Board (WSESRB) concurrence on a design that is not fully understood by the acquisition team, and configuration management supportability resulting in potential cost & schedule overrun and safety problems. The goal of this research is to study the properties of a COTS-based integration in order to determine if a data model exists to support a risk mitigation strategy. The data being used to for this research is from the Defense Acquisition Management information Retrieval (DAMIR) system and case studies on select OA-based weapon systems.
Keywords
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