I-RaCM: A Fully Integrated Risk and Life Cycle Cost Model

SpaceWorks Engineering, a business division of SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI), conceived of the Integrated Risk and Cost Model (I-RaCM) to meet the need for synchronous cost and risk assessment early in the design of a new system. I-RaCM encompasses a diverse set of cost and risk tools implemented in the ModelCenter® framework, providing for a seamless integrated analysis solution. Both newly developed and existing industry-standard software tools are combined within I-RaCM allowing for rapid evaluation of life cycle cost, operations, reliability, technology development costs, and commercial business case viability. Tools currently integrated within I-RaCM include the NASA Air Force Cost Model (NAFCOM), Galorath SEER-H, SpaceWorks Engineering’s Facilities and GSE Operations Assessment (FGOA) Tool, and a reliability calculation tool using Fault Trees and Event Sequence Diagrams. Also included is an initial version of a new Technology Cost Estimation (TCE) tool developed to estimate technology investment and development costs to achieve TRL-6 status based on a simple set of relevant inputs. Finally, the I-RaCM platform contains a custom created system level cost/risk aggregation tool, called Stack’em, which collects, post-processes, and graphically summarizes key outputs. Several novel cost visualization techniques have been conceptualized for Stack’em, providing designers with comprehensive insight into major cost and risk outputs, along with a budget optimization process that automatically adjusts program expenditures and schedule to fit under a fixed budget curve. This paper details the current functionality and toolset of I-RaCM. Results from four case studies demonstrating the capabilities of I-RaCM through analysis of a notional present-day NASA lunar exploration architecture are also presented. The entire integrated environment of I-RaCM is capable of linking with performance disciplinary tools through pre-established input and feedback interfaces. SpaceWorks Engineering plans to continue expanding I-RaCM with the addition of more advanced reliability analysis, availability and performability tools, and discrete event simulation of operations processing.