Bringing Operational Perspectives into the Analysis of Engineered Resilient Systems

Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) is a Department of Defense (DoD) program focusing on the effective and efficient design and development of complex engineered systems across their lifecycle. An important area of focus is the evaluation of early-stage design alternatives in terms of their modeled operational performance and characteristics. The work in this paper ties together differentiated operational needs with requirements specification and maturation of previous analytical constructs toward a more operationally relevant viewpoint. We expand on the concept of Broad Utility as a high-level aggregated measure of robustness of fielded system capabilities with respect to operational requirements. The relation to requirements is more explicit, and systems are failing to achieve threshold requirements are penalized. The impact of this approach and how it offers a foundation from which to more fully explore sensitivity to Pre-Milestone A requirements are discussed.