Collaborative Research: Theoretical Impact of Acquisition Mechanisms on System Design Outcomes Under Uncertainty

该项目将探索大型复杂系统开发中大规模成本超支的原因和解决方案，如新飞机、航天器、武器系统或新型能源发电厂。美国国防部报告称，超支、延误和取消相当于每天2亿美元的价值损失，航天项目、商用飞机、核电站和聚变原型发电厂也经历了类似的超支。这些损失很大程度上是由于工程流程造成的，但工程流程通常是对客户或政府合同的回应。不同形式的合同可以带来不同的流程，使技术上雄心勃勃的系统得以设计和开发，而不会造成重大损失。这不仅可以节省时间和金钱，还可以尝试更多的项目，加快技术发展的速度，加速我国的经济增长。该项目有可能成为改变联邦采购流程的基础，最终可能导致每天节省超过1亿美元。本研究项目的目标是检验这样一个假设，即在大型复杂工程系统中，从技术风险和复杂性到成本和进度超支的机制是受基于需求的合同刺激的需求向下流动的系统工程过程。该项目将使用工程组织的模拟来探索这一假设。虽然其他许多人已经将委托代理理论应用于承包，有些人探索了工程组织中的委托代理理论，但这是第一个研究如何优化激励合同以影响大型工程组织内设计工作的系统工程结构的项目。正是合同和系统工程实施方式的相互作用标志着这项研究的真正新领域。该项目探索了四个研究问题：1)成本补偿、奖励费用、奖励和项目结果之间的因果关系是什么？2)这种关系是如何受到行业工程组织(包括供应链)的结构复杂性和规模的影响的？3)这种关系是如何受到项目不确定性，特别是技术风险的影响的？4)这种关系是如何受到用户环境中的不确定性的影响的，也就是说，随着年份的变化，人工制品属性与政府利益的关系是如何变化的？回答这些问题将暴露与系统工程收购有关的理论问题，目前人们对这些问题知之甚少。

This project will explore the causes and cures for massive cost overruns in large complex system developments, such as new airplanes, spacecraft, weapon systems or novel energy power plants. The U.S. Department of Defense reports overruns, delays and cancellations equivalent to $200 million per day in lost value, and similar overruns are experienced by space programs, commercial aircraft, nuclear power plants, and prototype fusion power plants. Much of these losses are due to engineering processes, but engineering processes are usually a response to customer or government contracts. Different forms of contracts can bring about different processes, allowing technically ambitious systems to be designed and developed without large losses. Not only can this save time and money, it will also allow more projects to be attempted, accelerating the speed of technology development and accelerating our nation's economic growth. This project has the potential to be the basis of change in the Federal acquisition process that could ultimately result in savings exceeding $100 million per day.The objective of this research project is to test the hypothesis that the mechanism that leads from technical risk and complexity to cost and schedule overruns in large complex engineered systems is the systems engineering process of requirements flow-down, stimulated by requirements-based contracts. The project will use simulations of engineering organizations to explore the hypothesis. While many others have applied principle agent theory to contracting, and some have explored principle agent theory within engineering organizations, this is the first project to investigate how to optimize incentive contracts to affect the systems engineering structure of design work within a large engineering organization. It is the interaction of the contract and the way systems engineering is conducted that marks truly new ground in this research. The project explores four research questions: 1) What is the causal relationship among cost reimbursement, award fees, incentives, and project outcomes? 2) How is this relationship affected by the structural complexity and size of the industry engineering organization, including the supply chain? 3) How is this relationship affected by program uncertainty, particularly technical risk? 4) How is this relationship affected by uncertainty in the user environment, that is, by out year changes in the relationship of artifact attributes to government benefit? Answering these questions will expose theoretical issues pertaining to acquisitions in systems engineering that are poorly understood today.