COTS/NDI ASSESSMENT AND SELECTION METHODOLOGY

In an effort to radically reduce system development times and necessary resources, the Department of Defense (DoD) is emphasizing utilization of “Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS)” or “Non-Developmental Items (NDI)” in the development of new systems and the upgrade of existing systems. This paper outlines a methodology, involving the integrated application of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), to facilitate the prerequisite analysis and evaluation before making a commitment to a COTS/NDI alternative. While this COTS/NDI analysis and evaluation methodology is generic in its applicability within the system engineering process, in its current state the model based on this process has a system supportability bias.