Acquisition Systems Engineering

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The Strategic Defence Review (SDR)⁽¹⁾ heralded the advent of the Smart Procurement Initiative (SPI) as the basis of acquisition within the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and resulted in a change of emphasis within the MOD acquisition community. The aim of the change was to deliver equipment programmes in a shorter timescale, lower cost and providing improved capability and this resulted in the banner headline of 'quicker, cheaper, better'. The thrust of SPI was to guide the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) and the Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO), the two organisations responsible for acquisition and support of UK defence equipment, to take a holistic through-life view of purchasing and supporting a capability. Thus, one of the principle tenets of Smart Acquisition is the adoption of a Through Life Systems Approach, which takes account of the whole life costs of a project.

In order to respond to this Through Life Systems Approach, applied within the acquisition environment, a process (discipline) of Acquisition Systems Engineering has evolved. Clearly, at this juncture this emerging discipline needs greater definition; thus, the aims of Acquisition Systems Engineering are, as follows:

Acquisition systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach to evolve and verify an integrated and life cycle balanced set of product and process solutions that satisfy stated customer needs.

A total system design would include product hardware, software and planned support (logistic) resources.

This structured approach should integrate the essential elements and design decisions of interrelated design efforts to support the CADMID equipment life cycle.

The result is a balanced total system solution to meet the operational need (and other programme objectives).

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