DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A Approved for Public Release Distribution Unlimited OPEN SYSTEMS AND THE SYSTEMS ENGINEERING PROCESS

The point of open systems acquisitions is to ensure that we obtain the most effective weapon systems possible—systems that are affordable, accommodate changing technology, and promote multiple sources of supply. Establishing a disciplined systems engineering approach is essential to achieving this goal. Tlie open system approach is both a technical approach to systems en-gineering and a preferred business strategy that is becoming widely applied by commercial manufacturers of large complex systems. It has the attention of Department of Defense (DoD) managers, who have mandated its use by DoD sys-tems developers. Why? Because without such a change in system development practice, DoD risks being unable to afford to maintain continued superior combat capability. Today, legacy weapons systems con-tinue to be developed with their own often-unique and frequently closed infrastruc-tures, making upgrading or modifying them over their expected lifetimes (20 to 40 years) both problematic and expensive. Also, reduced procurement budgets and increased dominance of commercial tech-nology cause acquisition managers to rely increasingly on commercial markets for affordable product development and support. So, as DoD's role shifts from being a technology producer to being a technology consumer, it relies more on commercial products whose design is not controlled by DoD and whose lifetimes are much shorter and more volatile than the weapons systems they support (e.g., years vs. decades). As a result, acquisition managers risk relying on unique products provided by a single supplier at high non-competitive prices and with little oppor-tunity for technology insertion by other suppliers. Here we discuss the need for a rigor-ous systems engineering process that incorporates open systems concepts and principles—where resulting system designs more readily accommodate changing technology to achieve cost, schedule, and performance benefits b