Broad Utility: Architecting Flexible and Robust Systems for a Complex Operational Environment

The current and future Operational Environment (OE) for the United States (U.S.) military is becoming increasingly complex. This complexity requires Systems Engineers and Architects to develop new approaches for evaluating the variability inherent in the OEs of today and tomorrow. In response to this growing capability gap, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) established the Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) program. A core property of ERS is Broad Utility—the ability of a system to, “perform effectively in a wide range of operations across multiple futures despite experiencing disruptions.” [1] This paper discusses on-going research intended to provide system designers with an approach to architecting systems for Broad Utility. Specifically, this research seeks to accomplish three objectives: (1) Identify gaps in current U.S. DoD doctrine impacting the ability to architect for Broad Utility; (2) Develop an integrated network model of the Operational Environment that highlights how OE variables can impact system effectiveness; and (3) Propose an approach for ensuring that system architectures exhibit Broad Utility, through a process of mapping system Flexibility and Robustness to the variables of the OE. By employing this approach early in the Systems Engineering process, system designers can increase the likelihood that the resulting system responds appropriately to a changing environment.