Cost Estimating Relationships for Evaluation of Rapidly Evolving Technologies

The objective of the Cost Estimating Relationships for Evaluation of Rapidly Evolving Technologies Program is to demonstrate the feasibility of an integrated toolset to quantitatively assess cost/risk/benefit tradespaces for emerging and potentially disruptive technologies for product line acquisition of new capability against the baseline of existing weapon systems/subsystems. DEC’s approach includes two components: the historically based (possibly modified) cost data from similar systems/technologies and the impact of the added risk and uncertainty of the new technologies. Because the goal is to assess not only the development cost, but also the entire Life Cycle Cost (LCC), a means of estimating the risk/uncertainty component across all LCC phases is included.. The CCADET toolset has these features: 1) Collaboration capability to derive the best solution based on cost, requirements, and performance expertise; 2) Costing for emerging technologies; 3) Data visualization for both inputs and outputs; 4) Multi-dimensional tradespace including cost, performance, risk, reliability, and maintainability; 5) Real-time results; 6) Affordable, flexible, agile, iterative, classified or unclassified; 7) Non-proprietary to maximize the number of users; 8) Addresses 11-step Cost Capability; and 9) Capture and document knowledge throughout the system life cycle.