A Business Case for Modeling and Simulation

Abstract

Simulation, once the rarefied domain of engineers, is increasingly subject to scrutiny and management. Once considered something of an oracle, it is now business as usual for many managers. As such, it must compete favorably for attention and funding with the very endproducts whose development it facilitates. In a world of product development increasingly dominated by business-school and marketing managers, we must be able to articulate the quantifiable benefits of our efforts in both magnitude and duration. This report presents a checklist for Return On Investment (ROI) in four classes of simulation: Constructive, Virtual, Live, and Smart. Each is distinguished by its degree of simulation (versus real ) of equipment (end products), people (end users), and the end-user/product environment. By establishing clear, reasonable expectations for ROI in simulation across the spectrum of modeling and simulation disciplines, and throughout the product life span we establish baseline cost estimation methods that can survive internal and external economic competition.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 2001
Accession Number
ADA395650

Entities

People

  • John R. Carter Iii

Organizations

  • United States Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Business Administration
  • Case Studies
  • Command And Control
  • Commerce
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computers
  • Control Systems
  • Department Of Defense
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Reliability
  • Systems Engineering
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Test Equipment
  • Weapons Effects
  • Wind Tunnels

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis
  • Systems Analysis and Design