5.4.2 Mousetrap: A Concurrent Engineering Simulation That Keeps Going…and going…and going

Abstract

AbstractThe Department of Defense Systems Management College uses the Stored Energy Ground Vehicle Simulation (“Mousetrap”) to train future program managers in the application and power of concurrent engineering and the systems engineering process. The simulation has evolved over the past seven years into what we believe to be a world class concurrent engineering simulation, which additionally provides the military officers and DoD civilians a critically important industry perspective.Each student integrated product team performs the role of a defense contractor competing against other student “companies” in their quest for the single follow‐on production contract to be awarded after completion of the acquisition development cycle and a government supervised competitive “run‐off”. They respond to a government request for proposal, negotiate a contract and spend time over 14 weeks developing a life cycle balanced system, expending and accounting for labor and actual government funds for materials. They must conduct three acquisition phase based technical design reviews presented to an integrated government program office, and subsequently build and field a competitive prototype.