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法，如新飞机、航天器、武器系统或新型能源发电厂。美国国防部报告说，每天的超支、延误和取消相当于损失了2亿美元的价值，太空项目、商用飞机、核电站和核聚变发电厂的原型也经历了类似的超支。这些损失大部分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响应。不同形式的合同可以带来不同的流程，允许设计和开发技术上雄心勃勃的系统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过程的基础，最终可能导致每天节省超过1亿美元。这个研究项目的目标是测试这样一个假设：在大型复杂工程系统中，导致技术风险和复杂性导致成本和进度超支的机制是需求流向下的系统工程过程，由基于需求的合同刺激。该项目将使用模拟工程组织来探索这一假设。虽然其他许多人已经将委托代理理论应用于合同，有些人已经在工程组织中探索了委托代理理论，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中设计工作的系统工程结构的项目。这是合同和系统工程的方式进行的相互作用，标志着真正的新领域的研究。该项目探讨了四个研究问题：1)成本报销、奖励费用、激励与项目成果之间的因果关系是什么？2)工业工程组织（包括供应链）的结构复杂性和规模如何影响这种关系？3)这种关系如何受到项目不确定性，特别是技术风险的影响？4)这种关系如何受到用户环境的不确定性，即人工制品属性与政府利益关系的年度变化的影响？回答这些问题将揭示与系统工程中获取有关的理论问题，这些问题今天被理解得很差。

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.