Addressing Value-Centric Design as a Multi-Scale C2 Problem

Robert H. Weber The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, California, 90275 The Complex Systems approach to science and engineering problems as pioneered at DOE National Laboratories and the Santa Fe Institute and now pursued broadly in academia provides the intellectual foundation for understanding how analysis of intentional and adaptive systems depends on computer simulation technology. Agent-oriented software can now generate virtual worlds where system analysts may conduct controlled laboratory experiments which overcome many limitations of both equation-based models and experiments with human subjects. The former lack the richness of dynamic interactions between opposing human controlled systems and the latter do not permit broad exploration of the trade-offs between capabilities of physical systems and operational concepts of human users, especially where the interactions may produce emergent outcomes. The argument is made that agent-based simulation provides the necessary tools for enabling a fruitful convergence of the Model-Based Systems Engineering and Value-Centric Design (VCD) movements to engage the multi-scale C2 design problem which is the crux of human operated Complex Systems. Reflexively, VCD should see itself as a multi-scale C2 problem as it addresses the communication gaps between various layers of engineering and military user communities, when and where those gaps bear major responsibility for the poor C2 performance of DoD system acquisition organizations in the system development process.

Nomenclature
ATO C2 C4ISR CAS CDR CIO COCOM DOE DOE GIS GPS IT KPP LAN M-ABM MBSE MOFE MUA OODA SCADA SFI SEAD STT VCD = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Air Tasking Order Command and Control C2, Communication, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance Complex Adaptive System Critical Design Review Chief Information Officer Combatant Command Department of Energy Design of Experiments Geographic Information Systems Global Positioning System Information Technology Key Performance Parameter Local Area Network Multi-Agent-Based Model Model Based System Engineering Measure of Force Effectiveness Military Utility Analysis Observe, Orient, Decide, Act Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Santa Fe Institute Suppression of Enemy Air Defense Strategy-to-Tasks Value-Centric Design

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I. Historical Background

ince the publication of The Control Revolution as a socio-technical study of the Industrial Revolution, we have had the benefit of Prof. James Beniger's insight that the adverse physical consequences of urban-industrial development have been driving progress in information systems technology. The compelling need is to bring industrial development into alignment with values and goals of the host society. At the ultimate macro scale of world history, he views the IT revolution as driven by a global C2 problem posed by the Industrial Revolution. Beniger's book has been described by a leader in the Complex Systems movement as ".undoubtedly the best work ever by a professor of communications,...a very detailed history of the use of technologies and techniques of communication and information processing and their use for controlling social and economic processes."1 Beniger summarizes his thesis in these words, "By far the greatest effort of industrialization...was to speed up a society's entire material processing system, thereby precipitating what I call a crisis of control, a period in which innovations in information processing and communications technologies lagged behind those of energy and its application to manufacturing and transportation." 2 His book documents how the control crisis in industrializing society began around the 1840s with the outbreak of accidents on the loosely supervised railroads. And he carries the need for increasing social control of industry as far forward as the early 1980s with the research on programming of DNA amino acid pairs at the molecular scale in addition to the increasing sophistication of industrial market research and use of microprocessor chips and linear programming theory for production planning at the macro scale. Given the continued risk of global economic systems, running on the ragged edge of control at the global level, with massive debt financing needs, instability of currency exchange, pollution of water supplies, collapse of ocean fisheries and disruption of air travel, we can ask: What will be the next generation of information technologies to enable more robust control of these vital resources and functions? We can further ask: To what degree are the essential technologies for more adaptive control on the economic stage also the same for military operations? In the early years of the US industrial development there was much in common as engineering and managerial leadership in industry owed a significant debt to a number of outstanding graduates of West Point, most notably during the tenure of Sylvanus Thayer. Two of his students--William Gibbs McNeill and George Washington Whistler became the most prominent of the early engineers with their work in building the Western Railroad and the B&O. Nearly twenty-five percent of West Point Graduates during the Thayer period became civil and railroad engineers.3 The hierarchical military model for command and control supported by a staff organization for technical functions spread from the railroads to become the dominant structure form for managing other labor intensive logistics and sales networks such as found in automobiles, steel mills, petroleum, telephone, electric power, and department stores. The scale and speed of information processing in both industrial and military C2 networks relied strictly on human capabilities until the beginning of the information age which was propelled by wider application of defense industry development of the electronic computer during WW II. Through increasing automation of data collection, processing and communication functions it became evident by the 1980s that industrial corporations--even large ones such as Toyota, General Electric and Hewlett-Packard--gained an agile and adaptive competitive advantage by using technology simultaneously to automate information processing and to decentralize the human element of their C2 functions. Leading examples of this industrial transformation were found in the IT industry itself in such companies as Intel, Motorola, Apple, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft. Fears of the Y2K or "millennium bug" accelerated product cycles in the commercial IT sector into the 18 month region by year 2000.

II. Complex Systems and the Cybernetic Model of Conflict

Already by the end of the Cold War, marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it was clear that industry was moving ahead of the military in reform of C2 processes based on exploiting information technology. These words of IT organizational pioneer Paul Strassmann translated his experience as CIO of Xerox and appreciation for cybernetic concepts into his agenda for a similar CIO role at DISA: "C2 systems are the only systems that matter. Defense is command and control; everything else is a detail."4 Although initiatives for DoD-wide standards for information architecture and Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) began during Strassmann's period in the 2 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

mid 80s, the rate of progress has not kept pace with that of industry. The DoD remains a major player in sponsoring high risk R&D, but it has been lagging industry in promoting enterprise-wide application of IT in C2 functions, especially in the top-level C2 loops of defense system acquisition which interface with those of industry. The result is that US industry has lost an important government partner which for over 100 years had provided it a competitive advantage on the world stage first by transferring intellectual capital in management principles and procedures for C2 of large organizations from the military to US industry and more importantly by acting in the marketplace as an enlightened early customer for industry products. Without the financial incentive provided by smart consumers, commercial firms in a monopoly or oligopoly market position will resist taking risks on new technology and management policies. But only a little encouragement from smart customers in niche markets is needed to motivate start-up firms to risk challenging the established leaders. Clayton Christensen called these dynamics "disruptive innovation" in his book The Innovator's Solution.5 The federal government has sometimes acted through the commercial market to encourage disruptive innovators, as it did first by being an early customer of CDC supercomputers to challenge IBM and later as an early customer of Cray Research to challenge both CDC and IBM. Although supercomputers based on custom CPUs never attracted commercial customers, now that architectures are based on commercial CPUs and grid computing is on the verge of becoming a public utility, a commercial market has become possible. Against a major challenge from Japan in the 1990 the US has managed to increase its share of the world market since 1993 to 56% in number of supercomputer systems as compared to the UK as its closest competitor with 8%. And most all supercomputers use CPUs from US industry--Intel (82%), AMD (9%) or IBM (8%). On the other hand, sponsorship of R&D without the follow-through to promote open interface standards and commercialization of derivative products is a dangerous policy combination. In the age of industrial globalization this policy risks handing the gems of government sponsored transformational technology to the industries of other nations eager to take risks that US industry, lacking a domestic market, may not. Two prime examples from the last century were the failure of Robert Goddard to find any US customers for his rocket technology which was eagerly exploited by pre-WW II Germany and W. Edwards Deming's innovations in statistical process control which found a more receptive audience in post WW II Japan. Toyota was able to leverage Demings methods into becoming the world leader of the auto industry, and the Japanese auto industry became a formidable competitor to Detroit. A counter-example for more intelligent policy that of the GPS navigation system and derived GIS information products where constructive government--industry partnership has, so far, enhanced US industrial competitiveness. A more recent transfer of intellectual capital from the defense sector to commercial industry has been the legacy of the post Cold War involvement of DOE laboratories with computer modeling and simulation of complex systems. Starting with nuclear weapons design and then adding plasma containment for fusion reactors, they ventured into mapping the genome, simulating automated vehicle traffic management and modeling a variety of global environmental interactions. The Santa Fe Institute (SFI), a privately financed spin-off of Los Alamos National Laboratory has been the primary channel transmitting complex systems simulation techniques to study of social and economic policies outside the defense community and to the business world interested in management of complex supply chains and market-based financial strategies. For purposes of this discussion the properties of complex systems of primary interest are parallel interactions at multiple scales (eg., cellular, organic and social) of living organisms on the far side of what David Abel calls the "Cybernetic Cut." Such systems, frequently called "Complex Adaptive Systems" (CAS), are distinguished from the purely physical systems on the other side of this fundamental dichotomy in our perceived world. As Able explains, "Cybernetics studies mechanisms of control. But control requires purposeful choice contingency, not chance contingency....The cybernetic cut elucidates the difference between constraints and controls, between laws and rules, and between order and organization. Constraints consist of initial conditions and the orderliness of nature. Controls steer toward the goal of a function. Laws describe fixed relationships of invariant physico-dynamic orderliness. Rules suggest what voluntary behavior will produce the best formal utility. Rules are regularly broken, laws are not."6 Over the last decade, not only the EU but also governments of Australia and Canada have followed the lead of SFI in giving high priority to complex systems modeling and analysis, especially for management and policy studies regarding sustainable energy alternatives and policies towards regulation and growth of complex industrial IT systems including various concepts for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) that merge human and automated control processes. 3 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Understanding social systems requires modeling cybernetic control systems operating at least two scales--the group with its goals and the heterogeneous individuals with their goals which involve conflicts with other individuals and probably some conflicts between individual goals and those of the group. At this point we should be clear that we are not addressing the additional complexity of conscious human behavior, only the goal seeking behavior of all living organisms. One can understand the difficulty of trying to use closed-form equation-based models to understand the surprising diversity of behaviors which emerge at the ensemble or social level from discrete organisms with local control loops operating asynchronously with different cycle times. This is the fundamental reason that modeling of CAS had to await the development of multiprocessor computer hardware and agent-based software architectures and languages, where behavior rules can be encapsulated with data and object identification. Both industrial and military systems have some conflict management behaviors in common to handle nondestructive disruption and delay, but the modeling and analysis of interactions between military forces involves damage or destruction of both physical systems and intentional agents employing those systems. So the design of physical systems for military conflict must account for the risk of some level of destruction either by increasing numbers of units or by individual resistance to damage and destruction. Strangely, this author has found only a single paper in the literature of US defense community that recognizes the fundamental philosophical distinction between designing systems to withstand opposition by a CAS with conflicting goals as compared to respecting the usual engineering constraints, margins and risks of only the natural hazards! This single paper is the RAND classic RAND from 1968 by Albert Wohlstetter titled "Theory and Opposed System Design."7 While there are a few papers by defense policy analysts that recognize visionary contribution, none add anything to what Wohlstetter already said and no implications are drawn for an improved DoD system acquisition process as a part of the movement towards Model Based System Engineering. The system engineering side of the defense community seems relatively oblivious to implications of the "cybernetic cut" and "opposed systems design" to enhancing the power of MBSE and truly transforming the process of system architecture design and the efficiency of DoD systems acquisition. This is exemplified by the proliferation of executable models of DODAF architectures which simulate unopposed operations of Blue systems! To help us consider system engineering implications of opposed systems design in context of the cybernetic or control theory paradigm the reader is referred to Figure 1 which illustrates two alternative modeling approaches for understanding and analyzing dynamic outcomes of military conflict between Blue and Red forces. The top of the figure shows the predominant legacy approach to computer simulation of combat with heritage to the Lanchester equations which were limited to numbers and firing rates of weapons. Weighting factors for a combination of sensor and information network performance can be added to inject some aggregated sensitivity to C4ISR functions. While the chart shows a deterministic computation, a stochastic, discrete simulation approach using Monte Carlo draws with feedback from one time step to the next only provides a well behaved probability distribution of outcomes, since no adaptive behavior or operational concepts are modeled and no far from the mean, emergent outcomes are possible. Since the computer code constrains the outcomes by inputs derived from Measures of Performance (MOPs) of purely physical systems, there is no way to model the interactions between engineering performance of weapons and tactical behavior rules which the work of Army operations analyst Stephen Biddle has shown to be of fundamental importance.8 Clearly, this approach models combat as a simple system with the computer program playing both sides of the game board. The bottom half of the diagram illustrates the multi-agent based approach (M-ABM) to modeling military conflict as a complex system. In this case the controller symbol represents a complete sequence of military functions (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) first characterized by Col John Boyd as the "OODA Loop." On the Blue side only the top level controllers for three scales of C2 span of control are indicated, although in practical implementation there are many embedded controllers at the tactical level to model the important unit and systems characteristics across the Joint Warfare spectrum. When the strategic level of decision making is not an analysis issue, there will be no need for a controller at that level. On the Red side for purposes of diagram clarity only one controller has been indicated. Depending on communication network modeling and rules for the degree of subordination to orders from the C2 hierarchy, there is an opportunity to compare the modern concepts of decentralized C2 with closely coupled subordination to the command hierarchy. While the lowest level individual behaviors are based on simple, invariant reactive rules for self-preservation, rules at the higher control levels are based on commander's intent and some limited repertory of predetermined plans or maneuvers. Adaptive behavior occurs at these levels as the feedback of situation awareness to the respective commanders triggers the need to change the priorities of the Air Tasking Order 4 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

(ATO), slow or stop an advance, attack a different flank or retreat. The output of multiple trials of the M-ABM is a stochastic distribution of some Measure of Force Effectiveness (MOFE) chosen by the analyst to enlighten the relevant decision makers. The credibility and usefulness of this output is dependent on discovery of regions of emergent behavior which for some inputs should produce surprising long-tail or multi-modal distributions. These results may be initially surprising but should be traceable back to simulated pathways of cause and effect which are not only intuitively satisfying but can be seen in historical data or reproduced in real world experiments.

Figure 1. Control Theory View of Conflict. Pursuant to the objectives of this AIAA SPACE 2010 Conference, we should note that the generality and universality of the cybernetic, opposed system model allows it to inform management policies for the DoD space system acquisition process itself. Among other things, use of this model suggests a major part of the DoD system acquisition problem is the attempt to make optimal trade-off decisions over a set of conflicting requirements derived from widely varying operational scenarios over a lifecycle of 10 to 20 years. Currently these design trades are frozen into ever more closely coupled hardware subsystems which leaves less flexibility for downstream modifications as as operational needs change. Recent experience has shown this to afford diminishing returns against the objective set of conflicting requirements while incurring cost growth and the risk of being over-designed for an operational environment when some of stressing objectives have become much less important. The cybernetic approach suggests that a contrary system architecture involving more loosely coupled hardware subsystems merits investigation. One variation being developed under the DARPA F-6 program is orbiting a formation of less costly and more easily replaceable hardware components connected by a local area network (LAN). A related variation would be a system architecture that, instead of optimizing at CDR across conflicting Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) driven by a range of uncertain use cases, defers some critical trade-off commitments until operational deployment of the system. At that time an upload of flight software modifications in conjunction with a responsive C2 capability would be tuned for the priority needs of the operational mission. According to this concept responsive and capable C2 should facilitate making some system performance trade-offs at "run time." This approach could be viewed as an extrapolation consistent with the Incremental Commitment Model (ICM) for system of systems engineering practice developed by Prof Barry Boehm at USC Viturbi School of 5 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Engineering as an implementation of Evolutionary Acquisition reform of DoD policy and in support of the revised DODI 5000.02. 9 These arguments in favor of reversing the current trend toward greater system complexity from more tightly coupled hardware components as a means of improving the DoD record on systems acquisition are supported by a recent SFI paper that analyzes historical data to quantify the relationship between system design complexity and technology improvement.10 The authors examine the historical data base of several technologies such as solid state electronics, ethanol refining and coal fired power plants. One of their objectives is to generate more reliable cost forecasts for technology improvement and cost reduction of "green energy" alternatives. Building on some previous work, the SFI paper simplified the production recipe approach for multiple component technologies by representing the interactions between multiple components with a Design Structure Matrix (DSM). This is usually just a Boolean n x n matrix where a 1 in row i and column j indicates that component i is dependent on j. The simple approach of counting the "out degree" of each component/node of the network allowed the authors to reach some useful conclusions when modeling the cost reduction of a multi-component system as a function number of improvement efforts. They found that a power law model fits the data with a slope of - where = 1/( d*), and d* represents the design complexity as captured in the DSM, while measures the intrinsic difficulty of finding better components. There is serious debate in the literature about the best proxy for . Cumulative production is most commonly used with other possibilities being cumulative investment, installed capacity, R&D expenditure, or elapsed time. Exploratory analysis of how the cost reduction slope vs system production varies with the DSM index of design complexity by using the SFI model to generate simulated data shows that "...when costs are spread uniformly across a large number of components, the whole technology undergoes steady improvement. In contrast, when costs are dominated by a few components, it undergoes erratic improvement." Their theory indicates it may be possible to increase both the smoothness and slope of a system's cost reduction curve by loosening the coupling between the components. 10 While the design complexity measure and lessons suggested by their simulations seem equally applicable to National Security Space systems, one major difference in their problem is that the set of technologies/systems can be measured by a MOE ($/watt for electric power or $/transistor gate for microchip CPU) which is simple and constant with no dependence on scenario or evolution with time. Since the multiple MOEs for NSS space systems (except GPS which does fit the SFI analysis cases) are mission and scenario dependent, a major part of the design trade-off, hence system acquisition problem, is the pressure to fix the design years ahead of its operational use. We have already learned from the discussion of the cybernetic concept how software modifications and responsive C2 might enable tuning the system MOEs, within some range, for the specific mission at "run time." This author suggests that the G factor in the SFI model could be reinterpreted to represent the intrinsic difficulty of selecting satisfactory components for the mission at hand. Then the wisdom of allocating as much adaptability over a probable range of system requirements to the software and C2 components would be clearly supported by the SFI model.

III. Strategy-to-Task Framework for MUA and VCD

The final verse of the multi-scale C2 theme must address the dominant break in the enterprise level C2 loop and show how the ineffective closure around the system design and acquisition process results from a cultural habit of engineers. The problem is that they assume that characteristics of physical systems (MOPs) can be used as proxies for user or customer measures of satisfaction. And this leads directly to making design choices on the basis of providing more performance rather than on satisfying only what the user needs. The INCOSE Working Group on Lean Systems Engineering conducted a survey of its community in 2009 to assess how well its members thought engineering programs they knew adhered to the Lean Principle that "The initial phase of every program should capture: >A comprehensive, unambiguous, and detailed understanding of Value to the customer, >Not only the traditional requirements, but also the needs, context and interpretations." The survey reported that "The understanding of customer culture among program employees is poor." 11 Unless the Value-Centric Design (VCD) approach is clear and its advocates are rigorous in establishing all values in the user domain and in measures the user intuitively understands, it will make no contribution to bridging the dysfunctional communication gap in the system acquisition process. Reference to Figure 2 helps bring some previous points back into perspective. The most important feature in this mental landscape is the "Cybernetic Cut" discussed earlier. It divides the cognitive users view of the operational 6 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

military forces from that of the engineering architect/designers. Everything below that Cut on the tan background is a physico-dynamic system devoid of intention and consequently devoid of intrinsic value. Values originate with customers and depend on goal priorities of those customers in context of operational use cases. The area of light blue background highlights those features of generic military COCOM user which transmit operational objectives or goal priorities down the command hierarchy. This construct can be found in a number of RAND publications on the Strategy-to-Tasks method for representing military plans, but this chart has been made more explicit for those analysts who need to take the next step to an executable simulation of a specific battle plan. For that purpose the level denoted "operational targets" has been added along with a lower level which diagrams the causal flow of Col John Boyd's OODA loop. This is the most basic structure on the cognitive side of the Cybernetic Cut which can be turned into executable code by merging the engineering MOPs from the other side with the rules for setting and adapting initial user goal priorities and timing for each of the "atomic" functions of the OODA loop. Naturally, the analyst must complete this process setting up the opposing side to generate a meaningful output of force-on-force interaction as diagrammed in the light blue window. It is meant to be a piece of the landscape above the Cut but is located at the lower right for graphic convenience. The distinction between MOPs on one hand and MOEs or MOFE on the other needs to be clear and rigorously maintained in order for the VCD movement to be a constructive force. MOEs as shown in the figure are operational user's means of assessing how well the combat is going compared to pre-planned objectives or tactical rule sets. For the Air Force SEAD mission the objective could be destruction of 80% of red SAM sites in the first xx hours before reallocating ATO missions to Theater Missile Defense, Air Interdiction or Close Air Support. An operational task for an Army unit might be to occupy a certain location within yy hours. However, the overall Measure of Force Effect (MOFE), usually attrition of major Blue combat vehicles or aircraft, is the basis for assessing the outcome of multi-mission combat and may be less sensitive to some mission MOEs than others. Making the VCD link from user values back to MOPs of engineering systems demands a broad Design of Experiments (DOE) which explores the sensitivity of MOFEs to MOPs of systems of interest for some set of accepted threat scenarios. Adding some variation of Blue force CONOPS to the DOE may also be useful in some scenarios.

Figure 2: STT Framework Shows Values of VCD Played Only by User Agents 7 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

IV. Conclusion
The challenge to the VCD movement in the defense sector is that of explicitly confronting the significant cultural gap at the Cybernetic Cut between the engineering community and industrial base managers on one hand and the operational military commanders on the other. Without successfully facilitating bi-directional, in depth communication across this gap, the VCD movement will likely fail to provide sufficient control of systems design and production, just as the financial "quants", limited by their equation-based models, failed to provide guidance to Wall Street Investment bankers, the SEC and the Federal Reserve for avoiding the near collapse in the financial system in 2008. Logical deduction from basic characteristics shows that Agent-Oriented System Engineering tools are essential to implement the VCD approach for design of Opposed Systems where all value originates with commander's intent at multiple levels of the organizational hierarchy. Consequently, training defense community analysts to build the user community for the few agent-based combat simulations that have demonstrated the most successful track record should be given the highest priority. Good operations analysis is learned by doing, so wider sponsorship of good analysis proposals is more important than developing more M&S for combat modeling. Without a critical mass of capable analysts there is not a strong enough user base to efficiently manage M&S improvements. But the needs of a sustaining analysis community can guide the priorities of further M&S software development in an ascending spiral with smart user feedback that code developers cannot provide themselves.

References
Shalizi, Cosma: book review of The Control Revolution, http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/beniger 2 Beniger, James R.: The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, (1986), p. vii. 3 USMA Bicentennial, The Thayer Era, http://www.usma.edu/bicentennial/history/1817.asp 4 Strassmann, Paul: in The Command and Control Reference Model for Modeling, Simulation, and Technology Applications, CECOM-TR-94-1, (1994), p. iv. 5 Christensen, Clayton M.: The Innovators Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth, Cambridge: Harvard Business Press, (2003). ISBN 1-57851-852-0. 6 Abel, David L.: The Cybernetic Cut: Progressing from description to prescription in systems theory, The Open Cybernetics and Systemics Journal (2008), vol.2, pp.234-244. http://www.benthamopen.org/pages/content.php?TOCSJ/2008/00000002/00000001/252TOCSJ.PDF 7 Wohlstetter, Albert: Theory and Opposed System Design, Santa Monica, RAND, (1968). http://www.rand.org/about/history/wohlstetter/DL16001.1/DL16001.1.html 8 Biddle, Stephen: Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, Princeton: Princeton University Press, (2004). 9 Boehm, Barry; Lane, Jo An: Guide for Using the Incremental Commitment Model (ICM) for Systems Engineering of DoD Projects, Version 0.5, USC-CSSE-2009-500, (2009). 10 McNerney, Farmer, Redner, Trancik, "The Role of Design Complexity in Technology Improvement," submitted to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, (2009). 11 "Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering", INCOSE, Version 1.0 Feb 1, 2009
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