Life Cycle Cost Considerations for Complex Systems

Because of complexity and technology, the upfront costing of complex systems has become a tremendous challenge. We understand how to cost hardware and to a lesser extent software. However, we are still developing tools and processes for costing the integration and interfaces of complex systems. As we scale to larger and more complex systems, system-ofsystems (SoS), and enterprises our ability to determine costs becomes less relevant and reliable. Our estimates can be off by an order of magnitude. Unfortunately, this often the result of requirements creep as much as it is our inability to translate requirements to products.