Engineered Resilient Systems: A DoD Perspective

Engineered systems often operate well beyond their planned retirement date due to a variety of factors from affordability to performance. This paper presents a grounded theory approach to identifying the nonfunctional attributes that separate Department of Defense (DoD) systems that the DoD extends beyond retirement and those that it chooses to retire. The systems engineering ilities, nonfunctional attributes, serve as a means to code textual data on these systems to develop and validate the grounded theory. It examines a total of fourteen DoD systems to first develop an initial grounded theory and then validate the grounded theory that the attributes of extensibility, flexibility, interoperability, robustness, and versatility are more common in extended DoD systems. The data indicates that these attributes differentiate the two groups of systems, retired and extended, at a statistically significant level and the decision to retire a DoD system is dependent on the nonfunctional attributes of these systems. By understanding what system attributes make a system more likely to be extended, engineering managers can better manage a system throughout its lifecycle. Finally, it presents potential future work to include the expansion of the grounded theory application to other systems and disruptive technologies.

Test specimens of various aluminum alloys common to U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) systems or proposed for use in DoD systems were identically prepared and exposed under bare uncoated conditions in chamber based laboratory accelerated corrosion test methods to assess their relative susceptibilities to general corrosion attack. The methods used were ASTM B 117 neutral salt fog (NSF) and General Motors Standard 9540P (GM 9540P) cyclic accelerated corrosion. The NSF specimens were compared at intervals of 18, 72, and 168 hours. The GM 9540P specimens were assessed at 1, 5, and 10 cycle intervals. The corrosion assessments were graphically obtained using flatbed scanning techniques.

The Department of Defense (DoD) manages capabilities through the Joint Interoperability and Capability Development System (JCIDS) process. As part of this process, sponsors develop a series of DoD Architecture Framework (DoDAF) products to assist analysts understand the proposed capability and how it fits into the broader network of DoD legacy systems and systems under development. However, the Joint Staff, responsible for executing the JCIDS process, often analyzes these architectures in isolation without considering the broader network of systems. DoD leadership, the Government Accountability Organization, and others have noted the lack of the DoD's ability to manage the broader portfolio of capabilities in various reports and papers. Several efforts have proposed merging DoDAF architecture into a larger meta-architecture based on individual system architectures. This paper specifically targets the Systems View 3 (SV-3), System-to-system matrix, as an opportunity to merge multiple DoDAF architecture views into a network of system and understand the potential benefits associated with analyzing a broader perspective. The goal of merging multiple SV-3s is to better understand the interoperability of a system within the network of DoD systems as network metrics may provide insights into the relative interoperability of a DoD system. Currently, the DoD's definition of interoperability focuses on the system or capability's ability to enter and operate within the DoD Information Network (DoDIN); however, this view limits the definition of interoperability as it focuses solely on information flows and not resource flows or physical connections that should be present in a SV-3. The paper demonstrates the importance of including all forms of connections between systems in a network by comparing network metrics associated with the different types of connections. Without a complete set of DoDAF architectures for each system within the DoD and based on the potential classification of these products, the paper collates data that should be included in an SV-3 from open source, unclassified references to build the overall network of DoD systems. From these sources, a network of over 300 systems with almost 1000 connections emerges based on the documented information, resource, and physical connections between these legacy and planned DoD systems. With this network, the paper explores the quantification of individual system's interoperability through the application of nodal and network metrics from social network analysis (SNA). A SNA perspective on a network of systems provides additional insights beyond traditional network analysis because of the emphasis on the importance of nodes, systems, in the network as well as the relationship, connections, between the nodes. Finally, the paper proposes future work to explore the quantification of additional attributes of systems as well as a method for further validating the findings.

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Government NewsFull AccessObama: Service Members Need Lifetime Electronic RecordMark MoranMark MoranSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:15 May 2009https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.44.10.0012President Obama last month called on the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense to create a joint seamless health information network.Appearing at a press briefing with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Eric Shinseki, the president urged the creation of a joint virtual lifetime electronic health record. The purpose of the record is to create a seamless transfer of health records that would follow an individual from the moment of entry into the military and throughout his or her lifetime.“Access to electronic records is essential to modern health care delivery and the paperless administration of benefits,” the president said in a statement on the White House Web site. “It provides a framework to ensure that all health care providers have all the information they need to deliver high-quality health care while reducing medical errors. The creation of this joint virtual lifetime record by the two organizations would take the next leap to delivering seamless, high-quality care, and serve as a model for the nation.”The vision is far from a new one, however, and the complexities of creating a seamless transfer of data between the two vast information systems are daunting. But VA psychiatrist Peter Fore, M.D., a member of the APA Committee on Health Information Technology, said that progress is being made.“I have heard talk about this for years,” he told Psychiatric News. “The goal of having a seamless transition for veterans moving from the military into the VA system has been around for some time.”The VA currently has one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated systems for electronic medical records. Fore said the goal of the initiative is not necessarily a matter of creating one unified system, but allowing the transfer of information between the two systems.“It's a work in progress,” Fore said. “We currently have access to some of the records. We don't get live data, but we can request static reports that come over from the [Department of Defense]. Some of the data have to be standardized in pieces that can move from one system to the next.”But even matching up identifiers in the two systems to match records of the same patient can be difficult: if the VA system uses a middle initial, for instance, and the Department of Defense system doesn't, the records won't follow the patient. Other obstacles have to do with the architecture of the two computer systems and the development of common data-exchange points.But Fore said the goal is a worthy one, and while it is likely to take time, progress is being made.“As a psychiatrist, I would like to know the most complete information about my patient that is available,” he said. “If someone had a first episode of schizophrenia while in the military and was treated for it, I would much rather have that information available to me than trying to recreate what happened from the patient's own history.”He added that the goal of the seamless transfer of health information had even been a part of the VA's strategic plan prior to the president's remarks in April. The plan calls for the goal to be accomplished by 2011. “It's already partly working, and I think it is going to be more complete as time goes on.” ▪ ISSUES NewArchived

Red teaming is a well-established methodology for ensuring and augmenting cyber system security; however, the training, expertise, and knowledge of appropriate tools and techniques required to perform effective red teaming come with a significant cost in time and resources. Large organizations such as the Department of Defense (DOD) use vulnerability assessment to identify software patches and other remediations for cyber systems to mitigate cyberspace exploitation. If a patch cannot be applied in a timely manner, for instance to minimize network downtime, measuring and identifying the impact of such unpatched vulnerabilities is left to scarce red teaming services. These services typically concentrate on initial access exploitation, which stops short of exploring the larger security impacts of cyber threats performing post-exploitation actions. This gap in post-exploitation red team analysis results in increased susceptibility to adversary offensive cyberspace operations (OCO) against DOD systems. This research extends the Cyber Automated Red Team Tool (CARTT), developed at the Naval Postgraduate School, by implementing automated red team post-exploitation analysis. The intent of this extended capability is to reduce the workload on limited DOD red teams and penetration testers by providing system administrators with the ability to perform deeper system analysis for the impacts of exploited vulnerabilities.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been utilizing polymer matrix composite (PMC) and structural adhesive materials in military equipment for over 20 years. However, the volume of PMCs in fielded systems has remained relatively low. Currently, however, the DoD has established strategic goals that will necessitate the use of lightweight composites in order to meet performance requirements. Therefore, the volume of composites used in DoD systems is expected to see an unprecedented 100-fold increase over the next 30 years. As production volumes increase, the need to address environmental impact increases. The major contributions to environmental degradation from composites are generation of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and generation of hazardous (HW) and solid wastes. HAPs result primarily during the curing of the composite. HWs arise from expiration of stockpiled resin materials and from soiled support media used during manufacturing and clean up. Due to the wide range of applications and materials systems, as well as manufacturing and repair requirements, a family of environmentally benign solutions is needed to reduce and eliminate environmental impacts from PMC manufacturing. Solutions are proposed involving use of new technologies and materials to reduce pollutants from composite manufacturing. The technologies proposed include alternative curing of thermoset composites using electron beam (E-beam) irradiation and materials substitution employing thermoplastics processed using electromagnetic irradiation.

In recent years there has been an increased need for resilience in complex military and civilian systems due to evolving adversarial and environmental threats. Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) is a Department of Defense (DoD) program focusing on the effective and efficient design and development of complex engineered systems. These complex systems need to be resilient to threats throughout their life cycle. However, most current engineering resilience literature focuses on systems with a single function and a single measure. Today’s systems are becoming more complex, with multiple functions and measures involving critical trade-offs during early life cycle stages. This paper develops criteria for a framework to incorporate resilience into DoD analysis of alternatives (AoA). Using the criteria, this paper creates a framework for defining and evaluating complex engineered systems that consider many missions, scenarios, uncertainties, functions, and measures. Lastly, using the criteria and the framework, the current literature is shown to have gaps for incorporating resilience into DoD AoAs.

Corrosion fatigue is an area of concern for the United States Air Force (USAF) and other Department of Defense (DoD) organizations. Often DoD corrosion prevention systems include chromate containing coatings, typically in the form of chromate conversion coatings and polymer primers. Chromate has been used successfully for many years within the DoD to prevent corrosion damage. However the environmental and personnel risks associated with chromate coatings have caused the USAF to pursue non-chromate containing corrosion prevention coatings [1]. To fully quantify chromate replacement coatings, an understanding of the effects that chromate has on corrosion fatigue crack growth rates must be fully characterized. Some researchers have shown that high levels of chromate added to 0.6 M NaCl full immersion corrosion fatigue tests on 7xxx series aluminum alloys slow the fatigue crack growth rate substantially [2,3]. The limitation of that research was that the amount of chromate present in the test solution environment was not connected to expected leach rates of chromate from polymeric coatings and a high solubility salt was used. The majority of DoD assets are protected from corrosion by polymer coatings loaded with corrosion inhibitors. For these coatings to slow fatigue crack propagation the corrosion inhibitors must become mobile as a consequence of hydration of the polymer coating matrix. Based on this mechanism of corrosion inhibitor release, the examination of atmospheric corrosion fatigue becomes important to help understand how inhibitors work in real world situations with hydrated salt layers rather than only fully immersed solutions.

Within the population of military service members and veterans, chronic pain is highly prevalent, often complex, and frequently related to traumatic experiences that are more likely to occur to members of this demographic, such as individuals with traumatic brain injury or limb loss. In September 2017, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense (DOD), and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pain Management Collaboratory (PMC) was formed as a significant and innovative inter-government agency partnership to support a multicomponent research initiative focusing on nonpharmacological approaches for pain management addressing the needs of service members, their dependents, and veterans. A Pain Management Collaboratory Coordinating Center (PMC3) was also established to facilitate collective learning across 11 individually funded pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs) designed to optimize the impact of the PMC as an integrated whole. Although the DOD and VA health care systems are ideal sites for the enactment of PCTs, executing these trials within the local context of DOD military treatment facilities (MTFs) can present unique challenges. The Military Treatment Facility Engagement Committee (MTFEC) was created to support the efforts of the PMC3 in its role as a national resource for development and refinement of innovative tools, best practices, and other resources in the conduct of high impact PCTs. The MTFEC is composed of experts from each service who bring experiences in executing clinical pain management trials that can enhance the planning and execution of the PCTs. It provides expertise and leadership in the execution of research studies at within MTFs and within the DOD health care system, with guidance from PMC3 Directors and in collaboration with NIH, DOD, and VA program and scientific officers. Considering the importance of enacting large-scale, pragmatic studies to implement effective strategies in clinical practice for chronic pain management, the MTFEC has begun to actualize its purpose by identifying potential barriers and challenges to study implementation and exploring how the PMC can support and aid in the execution of PCTs by applying similar approaches to stakeholder and subject matter engagement for their research.

This study examined the use of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) aftercare services among patients with serious mental disorders who were discharged from the military after a first admission to a Department of Defense (DoD) hospital. Administrative data from the DoD and VA health systems were linked to identify active-duty servicemen and -women who were hospitalized in a military hospital with a diagnosis of major depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia between 1993 and 1996 and who were subsequently discharged from the military. Split population survival analysis was used to examine separately the correlates of contact with VA outpatient mental health services and, among those who had contact, the time to contact after military discharge. Fifty-two percent of 2,861 identified individuals had received outpatient care from VA mental health clinics by the end of September 1998. The rate of contact was lower than in virtually all studies of aftercare following hospital discharge. Women, older persons, and persons with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder were more likely to contact VA outpatient mental health services than men, younger persons, and those with major depression. Among those who made contact, older persons had a longer time to contact. Many people who leave the military because of serious mental illness do not receive aftercare from the VA. The reasons for such low rates of contact are not clear. Identifying patients who need aftercare but do not receive it and ensuring that they have access to needed services remains an important challenge for the DoD and the VA.

Application of Systems Engineering to USAF Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR)

This is an excellent time for engineering design research. Not only is the National Science Foundation continuing its strong support for fundamental research in design but also the Department of Defense is pulling together a major new program in Engineered Resilient Systems at a level of funding that can completely change the field, and NASA's Langley Research Center is considering a new research thrust in complex engineered systems. Also, the Department of Defense sponsored Systems Engineering Research Center, a consortium of about two dozen universities, led by the Stevens Institute of Technology is conducting a substantial number of high quality research programs in systems engineering and continues to receive robust funding. And the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Adaptive Vehicle Make program is committing hundreds of millions of dollars to demonstrate a radically new approach to design and development of complex systems.The impetus for all this funding is a crying need for more effective design. Research from my group at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, to be presented at this year's Conference on Systems Engineering Research, shows that the Department of Defense loses about $200 million per day in major weapon system cost overruns, program delays, and program reductions or cancellations. Experiences at NASA and Boeing, and at similar organizations outside the United States are essentially the same, although the Pentagon's programs are larger, more numerous, and better documented in the open literature (which is why we study them). I believe that the problems experienced by these programs are due to ineffective methods, processes, and tools.It is fair to ask how this can be, when the pages of this Journal are mainly devoted to disseminating the discovery and construction of design methods, processes, and tools. I see two reasons why our work to date has failed to stanch the bleeding of our largest engineering efforts. First, we do not have a way to measure the quality of methods, processes, and tools against a rigorous, widely accepted theory of design—in fact, we do not have such a theory. For large design projects performed within big organizations, we have hardly any theory useful for validating or comparing design methods. Second, the design theories we have do not sufficiently recognize the human, social, and organizational aspects of creating large systems.These two reasons are not problems for our research community. Instead, they are opportunities. We now have some nascent design theories circulating in our community with rigorous, sound foundations. The work is far from complete, but I think we have shown that we are up to it. And, we are making steady progress integrating learning from the social sciences into our design research. In fact, social-science based or linked design research is not at all new, but I believe it will become much more pervasive in the next few years.This is a new dawn in engineering design. Our field is on the verge of rapid growth into many deeply interesting areas. Hold your hats.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this piece are the author's alone. They do not necessarily reflect any positions of the National Science Foundation.

: At the Department of Defense (DoD), a personality disorder can render a service member unsuitable for service. GAO was required to report on personality disorder separations with regard to the following: (1) the extent to which selected military installations complied with DoD's separation requirements, and (2) how DoD ensures compliance with these requirements. GAO reviewed a sample of 312 service members' records from four installations, representing the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, that had the highest or second highest number of Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom service members separated because of a personality disorder. The review is generalizable to the installations, but not to the services. GAO also reviewed 59 Navy service members' records, but this review is not generalizable to the installation or the Navy because parts of the separation process could have been completed at multiple locations. GAO recommends that DoD do the following: (1) ensure that the services' personality disorder separations comply with DoD's requirements, and (2) monitor the services' compliance. DoD concurred with GAO's first recommendation and partially concurred with the other. DoD stated that it will strengthen policy guidance for the services' compliance reporting, but stated that it is the responsibility of the services to ensure compliance.

The exact amount of a product’s cost that is committed during the design phase is commonly debated, however based on the literature it is generally agreed that 70-85% of the costs are committed during the design phase. This information combined with the Department of Defense (DoD) focus on engineered resilient systems (ERS) has led to the research and development of a Manufacturability Assessment Knowledge based Evaluation (MAKE) methodology. This research is focused on the development of a manufacturability methodology to evaluate and assess alternative product designs in the early life cycle stages. McCall et al outlines the research efforts focused on the creation of the methodology and development and testing of a corresponding software tool. The research has continued forward with enhancements to the MAKE methodology and tool based on case study findings, which is the basis for this paper.The case study provided valuable insight into the research and development activities needed to improve the methodology to better fit with an early lifecycle development phase. Subsequently, a software tool redesign effort took place to improve the outputs available to the user and to streamline the methodology process. This paper will discuss the improvements for the design of the updated version of the MAKE tool and how it can be used for future assessments of DoD products for benefit to the warfighter.

Improving Care During Peacetime, War, and Disasters: A Call for Agile Military Civilian Strategic Alliances.