Enabling Affordability

"The environment within the Department of Defense for acquiring weapon systems has been rapidly changing. Even with the recent terrorist activities, the defense procurement budget has dramatically fallen from its peak, and DoD and the Military Services aredemanding more performance for less cost. Gone are the days when new systems could be developed and produced simply for reasons of greater payload, better reliability, more weapons on target, improved technology, etc. Now the benefits of performanceimprovements must be balanced against cost to arrive at a "best value" solution. In other words, the technology must be affordable. In the past, affordability was not often a priority for Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) programs because the emphasiswas on new technology, and the focus was strictly on performance. AFRL is attempting to measure and report return on investment (ROI) for Science and Technology (S&T) programs. Since a cost saving can't always be demonstrated for a new technology thatprovides previously unattainable military capability, innovative methods of measuring both investment and return, need to be developed, especially for technologies that do not have a manufacturing focus. This SBIR develops the methodology, processes andtools to evaluate the affordability on S&T investments"