Navy official: Set-based design may speed acquisition process

Using set-based design could quicken the traditional acquisition process, according to a Navy official.

"You do have to do some up-front work to use it and to set up the parameters," Robin White, director for surface ship design and systems engineering at Naval Sea Systems Command, said at an American Society of Naval Engineers event in Washington today.

"But it can certainly help speed up the decision process because the information is now available for quick responses to the type of 'What if?' questions that we need to be able to answer to our senior leadership," she said.

Set-based design "allows more of the design effort to proceed concurrently and defers detailed specifications until tradeoffs are more fully understood," according to NAVSEA.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer told reporters last week at the Pentagon the Navy cannot necessarily speed up the acquisition process when building an aircraft carrier, but can streamline individual processes within a major program.

White also said today it is important to "understand what we are and aren’t going to do and what kind of risk we take when we speed up some parts of the process."