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CRITICAL PROCESS ASSESSMENT TOOL (CPAT) FOR ACQUISITION REFORM IN DOD
Author(s) -
Rountree Richard C.,
Crabtree William,
Davis David E.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.1996.tb02034.x
Subject(s) - process (computing) , variety (cybernetics) , set (abstract data type) , government (linguistics) , computer science , engineering management , risk analysis (engineering) , process management , engineering , systems engineering , computer security , business , linguistics , philosophy , artificial intelligence , programming language , operating system
Acquisition reform within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has induced a wide variety of innovative engineering methodologies on the part of Air Force agencies such as the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) in El Segundo, CA to minimize government risk. One of these methodologies is a set of Critical Process Assessment Tools (CPATs) being developed to support project officers and project engineers: (1) in preparing Requests for Proposals (RFPs), (2) for subsequent source selection or factfinding, and (3) to participate in or review contract execution after contract award. CPATs are applicable to processes that, because of risk, are considered to be critical to execution of the involved contract. The Systems Engineering CPAT (SE‐CPAT) is the overriding element in the set since it is most likely to be critical to the success of a contract when new military or other system functional requirements are to be levied or requirements allocations and/or design must be changed for some reason. Furthermore, the SE‐CPAT serves as the integrator of other multidisciplinary engineering CPATs acting under the Integrated Product Development environment. The SE‐CPAT described in this paper, and available on the Internet, identifies a menu of objectives and other inputs to a RFP, factors and standards for source selection, and key questions for conducting technical evaluations and factfinding, and post‐contract award reviews. Throughout the paper selected SE‐CPAT excerpts are provided.