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Major Automated Information System (MAIS) Quarterly Report (MQR) determined that the ECSS program had incurred a "critical change" 1 because: 10 U.S.C. Ch 144A as amended by the FY2010 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requires Major Automated Information System (MAIS) programs to achieve a Full Deployment Decision (FDD) within five years after funds were first obligated for the program. Funds first obligated for Increment 1 of the ECSS program occurred on 31 Aug 05 when the Milestone Decision Authority (MDA) approved Milestone A. As of 31 Aug 10, the MDA had not approved an Increment 1 FDD thereby meeting the definition of a critical change. This report looks at the root causes of the problems in the ECSS program and is not restricted to the critical change. While the program does not have an Approved Program Baseline (APB), and therefore has no official estimate of cost growth, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that its estimated cost grew from $3.0 billion in 2008 to $5.2 billion as of their report in October 2010. 2 Of similar importance, the initial plan called for FDD by 2010; it now appears that the final FDD (the original plan only had one) will not occur until at least 2016. Therefore, a six-year schedule slip has occurred. Methodology We visited with ECSS' sponsor at the Air Staff, the program manager (PM), his staff, and the contractor's staff to understand their positions. At our meeting with him, the PM gave us large briefing books that contain a great deal of information about the program that we found nowhere else. We also studied all publicly available data, including quarterly reports to the Congress and the Air Force budget justification books. Lastly, we read ERP literature and consulted with ERP experts, both inside and outside the government. This report is a synthesis of what we learned from those sources. Cost Growth and Schedule Slip The GAO asserts that the costs grew 75 percent from Milestone (MS) A to today (not yet MS B), while the program manager counters that 34 percent is the proper number because the MS A estimate and the latest estimate assume different levels of risk. We have nothing with which to compare either number, to be able to determine whether or not the number is large. The standard Nunn-McCurdy thresholds do not apply in this case because they only refer to an APB, which the MS A service cost position (SCP) is not.

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This document reports on the feasibility of dev~loping a decision support tool that Could aid decision makers in formulating policies for the use of software standards and strategies for technology insertion. During the furs phase (1983-i984) a "white paperwas completed which provided a conceptuai framework for examining the role of standards in the MCCR acquisition proess. During the second phase (1985-1986), this conceptual framework was translated into a prototype decision support tool. This tool provided the ability to simaulate the effect of selected standardization policies on related technology and Mission Critical Computer resources (MCCR) costs, thus demonstrating the feasibility of modeling the linkages among DoD, standards policies, industry, technology, amid MCCR costs.The first scenario simlated the role of the current policy for the use of Ada as the only higher ordier language for the development of MCCR software. The other two scenarios examined cost effective strategies for inserting Ada and its related software engineering environments into the MCCR software production and maintenance procss The findings frm these simulations indicate that certain strategiestpoiies concerning the utilization of Ada have a powerful influence on MCCR software costs. AcknowledgmentsDuring this project a number of people contributed ideas and effort that were very beneficial to the outcome of the project. Special thanks to Ms. Janet M. Gould (MIT) for editing the appendices and to Mr. Michael Saylor (MIT) for editorial work on the finished report. Others who deserve credit for helping during the construction of the prototype model were *Dr.Thomas Probert, Col. Ken Nidiffer, Mr. Burt Newlin, Dr. Edward Lieblein, Dr. JackKramer, and Dr. John Salasin. (Research and Advanced Technology) to be completed in several phases, each phase being dependant upon the availability of funds. The purpose of the task was to determine the feasibility of developing a decision support tool that could aid decision makers in formulating policies for the use of software standards and strategies for technology insertion. During the first phase (1983-1984), a "white paper" was completed which provided a conceptual framework for examining the role of standards in the MCCR acquisition process. During the second phase (1985-1986), this conceptual framework was translated into a prototype decision support tool. This tool provided the ability to• simulate the effect of selected standardization policies on related technology and Mission Critical Computer Resources (MCCR) costs, thus demonstrating the feasibility of modeling the linkages among DoD, standards policies, industry, technology, and MCCR costs. Section 4.0 of this paper provides an overview of the model while Appendices A and B provide detailed documentation. * Section 5.0 describes the results of scenario simulations. The first scenario simulated the role of the current policy for the use of Ada 1 as the only higher order language for development of MCCR software. The other two scen...