Systems dynamics and life-cycle costing

Increasingly fierce commercial pressures necessitate the use of advanced lifecycle techniques to meet growing demands on both product time-to-market and business performance. Two significant methods of achieving such improved cycle-time capability are concurrent engineering and staged-delivery. Concurrent engineering exploits the potential for simultaneous performance of development activities between projects, product deliveries, development phases, and individual tasks. Staged-delivery enables lifecycle iteration to supply defined chunks of product functionality at pre-planned intervals. Used effectively, these techniques provide a powerful route to reduced cycle-times, increased product quality and, potentially, lower lifecycle costs. However, the degree and manner in which these techniques should be applied remains an area for active research. This paper identifies some of the issues and open problems of incremental development lifecycles by reference to the production of aeroengine controls software within Rolls-Royce pie. We explain why systems dynamics is a valuable technique for understanding the effects of incremental development on lifecycle costs in this context. This raises the potential for extension of this approach for lifecycle costing of complete aerospace products.