A -- SYSTEM MODELING AND RISK MANAGEMENT (SRRM) PROJECT

Notice Date

February 23, 2001

Contracting Office

NASA/Ames Research Center, JA:M/S 241-1, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

ZIP Code

94035-1000

Solicitation Number

RFI-2-38005-RRG

Response Due

March 26, 2001

Point of Contact

Ronnee R. Gonzalez, Contracting Officer, Phone (650) 604-4386, Fax (650) 604-4357, Email rgonzalez@mail.arc.nasa.gov

E-Mail Address

Ronnee R. Gonzalez (rgonzalez@mail.arc.nasa.gov)

Description

This Request for Information (RFI) is for information and planning purposes and to allow industry the opportunity to verify reasonableness and feasibility of the requirement, as well as promote competition. Background, Project Description, and Information Requested: NASA Vision: NASA is an investment in America's future. As explorers, pioneers, and innovators, we boldly expand frontiers in air and space to inspire and serve America and to benefit the quality of life on Earth. NASA Mission: (1) To advance and communicate scientific knowledge and understanding of the Earth, the solar systems, and the universe. (2) To advance human exploration, use, and development of space. (3) To research, develop, verify, and transfer advanced aeronautics and space technologies. The Design for Safety (DFS) program is designed to support the NASA Vision and Mission Goals by reducing risk in all phases of the life-cycle and by providing technologies to help build inherently safe and robust systems. DFS is a new NASA initiative designed to reduce risk in all phases of the life-cycle of aerospace systems and to provide technologies to make these systems inherently safe and robust. Analysis of recent aerospace mishap reports point to three broad problem categories: (a) risk identification, assessment and management, (b) institutional knowledge management, and (c) system resiliency and fault tolerance. DFS is performing a review to determine what technologies are available or under development to support each of these areas. This RFI focuses on the first area, addressed under the DFS System Modeling and Risk Management (SRRM) project. The SRRM project goal is to apply information technologies to improve the ability of NASA and its contractors to identify risks early, to eliminate them where possible, and to measure them accurately where unavoidable. We seek to improve quantitative risk assessment while recognizing that many risk sources are not currently amenable to quantification. Our risk assessments must rationally integrate information from both kinds of sources. Design processes start from requirements and proceed by iterations and stages to "close" the design in a physically realizable system that satisfies those requirements. The various stages and iterations attempt to satisfy performance, cost, schedule, and mission success goals (including risk). Within these processes, risks to mission success cannot presently be treated as a design parameter with the breadth and precision that would enable them to be managed on the same level with performance, schedule and cost. Current projects, of course, must and do manage risk. But design tradeoffs are very often made at all levels with little or no analysis of the impact on the overall mission risk. Risk to mission success cannot presently be treated as a design parameter with precision for several reasons. First, most risk management methods have their basis in reliability analysis. Reliability, a component property, is usually expressed as failure rates or distributions. One kind of problem stems from statistics: NASA has a low flight rate compared with, for example, commercial aviation, and the accuracy of the reliability statistics suffers as a result. An industry-wide component reliability database is needed, as is careful work to adapt data from related fields. While reliability is an important factor in system safety, safety encompasses much more than the expected lifetime of mechanical and electrical components. The second major problem with risk management practice is that several risk categories, e.g., software faults, cannot currently be measured effectively, since the probability and consequences such risks are not well modeled using reliability-oriented methods. Further, given the complexity of modern designs, error consequences may not be predictable, particularly in fields employing rapidly changing technologies where historical data isn't applicable. Finally, errors caused by the human and organizational elements of an aerospace system are an even more complex and difficult to measure. These are significant underrepresented risks. To address the above risk issues, the SRRM project faces the following challenges: (a) Find ways to develop complete mission risk profiles earlier in the design phase. (b) Find ways for risk profiles generated during design to be used during operations. (c) Make conceptual progress on assessing the risks of human portions of NASA mission systems and design organizations. (d) Enable more complete and cost-effective hazard analysis given modern, complex, highly integrated hardware/software systems. (e) Enable high-quality software engineering processes while reducing costs (perhaps by adapting the tools and methods of industry leaders to the NASA context). (f) Characterize physical processes underlying component failure in sufficient detail to allow tradeoffs against other, typically probabilistic, design parameters. The NASA Faster, Better, Cheaper task final report sets the goal "Establish & Maintain Mission Risk Signatures with mitigation plans" for each mission. DFS intends to provide technology and methodologies for those risk assessments. Areas of Interest: The SRRM project is focussed on several areas: Area 1: Quantitative Risk Management: (a) Semantic foundations of quantitative and qualitative risk assessment. (b) Methods for handling system dynamics (e.g., dynamic event trees). (c) Methods for multi-vehicle, multi-system, multi-contractor risk comparisons. (d) Architectures for integrated risk management tools. (e) Methods for adapting and reusing risk assessments for similar systems or after design changes. (f) Integrating quantitative and qualitative risk assessment. (g) Ways to validate risk models or component reliability data sources. Area 2: Individual and Organizational Risk Management: (a) Human and organizational error modeling. (b) Modeling and analysis of NASA design organizations to identify change enablers for increased safe design practices. (c) Organizational workflow and decision-making including design, operations and maintenance organizations. (d) Risk-focused decision-making and value modeling. (e) Group decision-making tools. (f) Methods to generate and track mitigation plans. Area 3: System Modeling: (a) Formal system specification languages. (b) Automated hazard identification methods for discrete and hybrid (discrete/continuous) system models. (c) Automated model conversion methods (e.g., from compositional "simulation" models to appropriate risk models, e.g., fault trees). Area 4: Software Engineering: (a) Requirements and specification tracking tools for linking system requirements to software specifications and then to implementations. (These support questions like "what is this code doing?" or "how is that requirement met?") (b) Software specification languages and validation methods. (c) Practical applications of formal methods to code verification and testing. (d) Software engineering process metrics and project risk management methods. (e) Libraries to support software fault-tolerance and tools that generate fault-tolerant code. (f) Automated code synthesis for high-payoff categories of NASA-relevant software. Area 5: Materials Analysis: (a) Monte-Carlo or other methods to derive probability distributions for aggregate system quantities (e.g., stress, strain). (b) Wear-out mechanisms, crack formation models and statistics. Area 6: Design to Operations: (a) Ways of using risk assessments during operations (e.g., risk advisories). (b) Ways of bringing operations personnel into the risk management process during design. Information Requested: One document, comprised of two major sections, is required in response to this request for information. Section 1. In the first section, NASA is seeking capabilities and qualification statements that demonstrate that the responder would be a suitable candidate to comment on and provide answers to the technical scope of SRRM as described above. The capabilities and qualifications statement shall include details that: (a) Describe past experience using these technologies on significant engineering projects. (b) Demonstrate an understanding of state of the art tools as applied to system design and life cycle management. The life cycle elements covered should include conceptual studies through the retirement of a product. (c) For commercially available products: (1) Indicate how large a problem or customer space in which the responder has successfully applied their products. Provide the number of customers using products in the following ranges: (i) Category 1: 1-10 customers, (ii) Category 2: 10-100 customers, (iii) Category 3: 100-500 customers, (iv) Category 4: Over 500 customers. (2) In addition, indicate the average number of users per customer, and the complexity or size of the application. Compare market penetration and functional capability to similar or competing products. Section 2. In the second section, NASA is seeking technology assessments, evaluations, or recommendations regarding the technical scope of SRRM. The information provided by the responder should include: (a) Details of a recommended technology development and implementation approach, including tools and methodologies that would be utilized. (b) "Lessons-learned" and metrics for cost/time savings based on past experience in development of similar technologies. (c) Inventive ideas on how to best leverage existing similar commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies or those under development in other Government programs. (d) A rough-order of magnitude estimate of time and cost for the development and implementation, and the generalized approach used to generate this information. (e) What process would be employed to implement suggested technologies? (f) What software and hardware architecture and systems would be required to develop and maintain the recommended technologies? Comments or questions surrounding this RFI may be forwarded to Ronnee R. Gonzalez, at the address herein, via electronic transmission to rgonzalez@mail.arc.nasa.gov, by March 8, 2001. To ensure clarity, telephone comments will not be accepted. Response to all comments and questions will be posted as an attachment to this synopsis. The response document should be no more than 50 pages (8.5" x 11") in length and shall be submitted electronically (hard copy accepted) by March 26, 2001. Additional back-up material may be provided in an appendix. Please ensure that the format for electronic documents are compatible with MS Office 97 or Adobe Acrobat Reader. If other software applications are used, please contact the Contracting Officer to ensure compatibility. This synopsis is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government, nor will the Government pay for the information solicited. Any questions regarding this announcement should be directed to the identified point of contact. An ombudsman has been appointed -- See NASA Specific Note "B". Any documents related to this procurement will be available over the Internet. These documents will be in Microsoft Office 97 format and will reside on a World Wide Web (WWW) server, which may be accessed using a WWW browser application. The Internet site, or URL, for the NASA/ARC Business Opportunities home page is http://nais.msfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/EPS/bizops.cgi?group=C&pin=21 It is the offeror's responsibility to monitor the Internet cite for the release of the solicitation and amendments (if any). Any referenced notes can be viewed at the following URL: http://genesis.gsfc.nasa.gov/nasanote.html

Web Link

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Record

Loren Data Corp. 20010227/ASOL016.HTM (D-054 SN50E4L7)