Project Description

1. Objective(s): At present, the System Readiness Level (SRL), as developed by the Systems Development & Maturity Laboratory (SD&ML) at Stevens Institute of Technology, is a descriptive model that characterizes the effects of technology and integration maturity on the system engineering effort of a DoD program.  The SRL and supporting assessment methodology has proven itself to be a promising mechanism for understanding the effects of technology and integration maturity in a systems engineering context. In addition, the current tools and methods have demonstrated utility for defining system status and providing leading indicators of integration risk. While the SRL model has been subjected to a series of validations with DoD programs and organizations (e.g. NAVSEA PMS 420, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman), it still has not reduced the level of subjectivity in the assessment and reliability in the results.  The success of the SRL’s implementation thus far highlights the potential benefits of extending the research to explore the application of the SRL to broader areas of the systems engineering and management domains, particularly with respect to systems of systems implementations, where validated models and supporting tools are lacking. This research will:

• Identify the SE architectural artifacts that support the assessment of a technology maturity (via Technology Readiness Levels), integration maturity (via Integration Readiness Levels), and likewise system maturity (via System Readiness Levels);
• Correlate SE architectural artifacts to supported views and artifacts within the DoDAF that enable TRL and IRL assessment; and
• Develop a maturity assessment tool that works with standard industry SE architecture tools (e.g. IBM Rhapsody).

2. Approach:  This research will be executed in three phases:

Phase 1: Survey current practices in SE architecting with a focus on DoDAF views/artifacts that support system maturity assessment. This knowledge will help in identifying artifacts available in DoDAF that will be supportive of the maturity assessment that could be performed with SE architectural tools. Capture sensible aspects of a DoDAF module that would successfully create a systematic and less subjective assessment of TRLs and IRLs.

Phase 2: Code the current state practice of the SRL methodology, which takes TRLs and IRLs as the input to calculate and display SRL results.

Phase 3: The partnerships of the SD&ML with the industry and government will allow for sample input files (e.g. system architectures) to assist in verification and validation of the embedded readiness calculator. Sample input files will be test cases for the embedded readiness calculator, and improve the methodology by serving as a feedback loop.

3. Planned Project Deliverables:  Prototype tools and Final Technical Report