The Cost Impacts of Jointness: Insights From the NPOESS Program

Abstract

Bruce Cameron-is a lecturer in engineering systems at MIT and a consultant on platform strategies. At MIT, Bruce ran the MIT Commonality Study, a 16-firm investigation of platforming returns. His current clients include Fortune 500 firms in high tech, aerospace, transportation, and consumer goods. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto and graduate degrees from MIT. [bcameron@mit.edu] Markus Bradford-is a junior economics major at MIT. He currently works as an undergraduate researcher at the MIT System Architecture Lab. His industry experience ranges from government and financial services and he is interested in project management in the technical space.[ mbrdfrd@mit.edu]Edward Crawley-is a professor of aeronautics & aeronautics and engineering systems at MIT. His research interests include system architecture, design, and decision authority in complex technical systems that involve economic and stakeholder issues. [crawley@mit.edu] AbstractAlthough joint programs are typically formed to reduce costs, recent studies have suggested that they may actually be more costly than non-joint programs. In this paper, we explore this hypothesis using an in-depth case study of the NPOESS program. To study jointness, we apply a semi-quantitative framework that quantifies the complexity impacts of jointness and enables us to observe their evolution over time. In particular, we describe how jointness impacted the NPOESS program-by inducing technical and organizational complexity-and illustrate how the relationship between both complexity types enabled, sustained, and induced cost growth. We also explain the evolution of the program's technical and organizational complexity by identifying five key technical decisions and collaborating agency interactions that increased complexity and cost. Finally, we conclude by noting that a key source of the NPOESS program's cost growth was not jointness per say, but rather, was the result of a mismatch in the amount of jointness that was present in the program's technical system but was absent in its managing organization.

A Framework for Studying Cost Growth on Complex Acquisition Programs

“…To study cost growth on the NPOESS program, we applied the above framework to generate unique conclusions about the program's history and evolution [Dwyer and Szajnfarber, ; Dwyer et al., ; Dwyer, ]. NPOESS was a collaboration composed of the DoD, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and NASA that was intended to develop a constellation of environmental monitoring satellites for low Earth orbit.…”

Exploring the Trade-offs of Aggregated versus Disaggregated Architectures for Environmental Monitoring in Low-Earth Orbit

“…Each of source of complexity that is included in our metric was observed to impact cost on past environmental monitoring programs. 15,24 Complexity is included in the cost estimate by identifying the complexity sources that affect each component. For every source, a cost penalty (shown in Table 2) is added to the component's non-recurring cost.…”

The Cost of Jointness and How to Manage It

“…In its current program, JPSS, NOAA is using NASA as an acquisition agent and is providing 100% of the funding for the system; for additional background on NOAA's past partnerships, please refer to Refs. (10,(18)(19).…”