A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Strategic Behavior in Systems Engineering

本项目的目标是提高对不完全信息下的战略行为对系统工程项目的影响的理解。现代工程项目的复杂性要求协调多个组织中数千人的活动。系统工程通过对问题进行分层分解、将需求向下传递、分包等经过良好记录的过程来解决这种复杂性。然而，这种系统工程过程通常会导致严重的成本超支和进度拖延。这对社会和纳税人来说都是巨大的损失(据估计，仅美国国防部每天的损失就超过2亿美元)。这项研究项目将质疑当前系统工程过程背后的假设，并增进对改进系统工程实践所需的理解。为了能够进一步研究这一重要问题领域，作为该项目一部分产生的研究工具和数据将通过基于网络的储存库免费提供。将组织一次讲习班，以应对这一领域的研究和教育挑战。这项研究的结果可能影响任何类型的大型工程系统的发展，包括航空航天、国防、交通和能源系统。在该项目中，系统工程过程将被建模为不完全信息的动态网络博弈。这将通过三个建模步骤来完成，包括：工程师在系统和子系统级别上的交互、分层系统工程过程和动态系统工程过程。该项目的总体预期结果是(I)考虑战略决策和分布式信息的系统工程基础理论，以及(Ii)根据衡量其对战略行为的稳健性的各种标准对现有系统工程过程进行的理论评估。具体结果包括在已建立的系统工程过程中遇到的信息系统和奖励/惩罚结构，能够考虑经验行为特征的委托人和代理人效用，代理设计能力的表征及其如何与过程结果的不确定性相关，已建立的分层系统工程过程的网络博弈表示，分层系统工程网络博弈均衡的表征，动态系统工程过程的多阶段网络博弈表示，以及根据各种标准的动态系统工程过程均衡的表征，例如，处于均衡的组织效用、子系统工程团队的总福利、激励兼容性等等。该项目的成果将通过出版物、讲习班、开放源码软件和一个在线数据储存库传播。

The objective of this project is to improve understanding about the impact of strategic behaviors under incomplete information on systems engineering projects. The complexity of modern engineering projects requires coordinating the activities of thousands of individuals across multiple organizations. Systems engineering tackles this complexity through well-documented processes for hierarchically decomposing the problem, passing requirements down the hierarchy, subcontracting, etc. However, such systems engineering processes typically result in significant cost overruns and schedule slippages. These represent significant losses to society and, oftentimes, taxpayers (one estimate values such losses to the U.S. Department of Defense alone at over $200 million per day). This research project will question assumptions underlying current systems engineering processes and advance understanding needed to improve systems engineering practice. To enable further research on this important problem area, research tools and data produced as part of this project will be made available freely via web-based repositories. A workshop will be organized to address research and educational challenges in this area. Results of this research can impact the development of large-scale engineered systems of any kind, including aerospace, defense, transportation and energy systems.In this project, systems engineering processes will be modeled as dynamic network games of incomplete information. This will be accomplished in three modeling steps covering: interactions between engineers in system and sub-system levels, hierarchical systems engineering processes, and dynamic systems engineering processes. The overall expected outcomes of this project are (i) a foundational theory of systems engineering that considers the strategic decision making and distributed information, and (ii) a theoretical evaluation of existing systems engineering processes according to various criteria measuring their robustness to strategic behavior. The specific outcomes include information systems and reward/penalty structures encountered in established systems engineering processes, principal and agent utilities capable of taking into account empirical behavioral characteristics, characterization of agent design abilities and how they relate to the uncertainty of the process outcome, network game representation of established hierarchical systems engineering processes, characterization of hierarchical systems engineering network game equilibria, multi-stage network game representation of dynamic systems engineering processes, and characterization of dynamic systems engineering processes equilibria according to various criteria, e.g., the organizational utility at equilibrium, the total welfare of subsystem engineering teams, incentive compatibility, and more. The results of this project will be disseminated through publications, workshops, open source software, and an online data repository.