Applications of Decision Analysis to the Military Systems Acquisition Process

We used decision analysis to define requirements for the US Marine Corps' mobile protected weapons system during the concept selection phase of the systems acquisition process; to analyze the mix of air defense weapons for the forward area air defense of the US Army during the demonstration and validation phase; to assist in the evaluation by US Army and the Marine Corps of competing proposals for the light armored vehicle in the full-scale development phase; to determine which service (army or air force) should be the proponent for the PATRIOT missile system in the production and fielding phase; and to provide cost-benefit priorities of projects to the Marine Corps in the program objectives memorandum process, which allocates resources throughout the systems acquisition cycle.