GROWING THE HOUSE OF QUALITY

Abstract

Early system engineering has been emphasized as a critical success factor within the U.S. defense acquisition community. Although the House of Quality has been recognized and utilized as a systems engineering tool for aligning customer and product requirements, there is limited research on the value added by the parallel inclusion of technology maturity assessment early into a system's life cycle. After examining major defense acquisition programs over the last decade, the Government Accountability Office has repeatedly recommended that the U.S. Department of Defense integrate component maturity assessment throughout system acquisitions to better manage risk. This paper introduces a process-driven optimization model that incorporates maturity assessment into the House of Quality. Based on a comparative analysis of the U.S. Army's Divisional Air Defense program, the model reveals that a more accurate requirements-to-capability mapping improves requirements tracking, resource optimization, and preliminary risk management.