The difficulties encountered during development of the theater battle management core system (TBMCS) provide lessons for systems engineering of large-scale, software-intensive systems. The absence of formal requirements and oversight, coupled with strong pressure for rapid deployment, caused the program to fail its first operational tests and actually delayed its deployment to the Held. The lack of measurable requirements and the need to integrate multiple third-party products and systems made it impossible to establish a system baseline and to test TBMCS in realistic conditions. Thus, significant problems manifested themselves only during official government tests. Moreover, despite nominal authority, the lead contractor had little or no control over the government-furnished elements and commercial off-the-shelf products that TBMCS was to incorporate. Experience with TBMCS leads to several conclusions. First, the more complex a system, the greater the need for rigor and discipline in engineering processes. Second, well-defined requirements are essential. Third, mandating the incorporation of specific third-party hardware or software may create severe problems for system development. Other lessons highlight the importance of open standards in a heterogeneous information technology environment and of layering with well-defined interfaces to facilitate integration and system evolution
Theater battle management core system lessons for systems engineers
IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine ; 22 , 3 ; 15-20
2007-03-01
4120797 byte
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Theater Battle Management Core System
Online Contents | 2007
|An Integrated Theater Battle Management C^2 Architecture Based on Commercially Available Software
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1995
|The Fleet Command Center Battle Management Project: lessons learned
Tema Archive | 1990
|