Toward Agent-based Modeling of the U.S. Department of Defense Acquisition System

The systems development, procurement and sustainment of a nation's military equipment is vital to its national interests, but the process is complex, constantly changing and highly adaptive, as well as time consuming and costly. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) expends both large amounts of capital and manpower to equip its armed forces. This research seeks to identify opportunities to gain better insight into the functioning of the defense acquisition system, building on previous simulations. A case is made that the DoD Requirements, Planning Acquisition, Technology and Logistics System is a complex adaptive system that has characteristics appropriate for exploration with agent-based modeling. This paper reviews relevant literature, existing models and presents preliminary analysis on an agent-based simulation of the DoD acquisition system. This research finds that agent-based modeling can provide insights to inform new acquisition theory.