Challenges in the Management of Faster-Better-Cheaper Space Missions and Analytical Tools. E. Paté-Cornell and R. Dillon, Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305-4024
NASA has recently changed the management style of its unmanned space programs to a faster-better-cheaper (FBC) mode of operation. FBC projects have focused scopes and are developed in three years for about two hundred million dollars. A current study of four missions (Cassini as a base case, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Pathfinder, and Deep Space Probe 1) allows us to compare the new management formula in its current transition phase to the traditional "flagship" projects, and to examine what this formula may yield in the long run. In this paper, we examine first the positive short-term features of the current missions and their flip side: what may have to be changed before applying the same formula to future projects. Second, we describe the quantitative analytical tools that may be needed to address these long-term issues in a systematic way, including risk analysis, decision analysis, value of information, optimization, and warning systems models. These tools allow setting priorities, quantifying tradeoffs and optimizing the allocation of resources to reach the minimum risk. They also allow estimating how close to the limit of tolerable risk the constraints put a specific project. If needed, this information permits readjusting the constraints or the mission scope.
Work supported by JPL/NASA under contract JPL/960835.
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