A Concept for Set-based Design of Verification Strategies Peng Xu Virginia Tech 1145 Perry St, Blacksburg VA 24061, USA +1(540)231-6656 xupeng@vt.edu Alejandro Salado Virginia Tech 1145 Perry St, Blacksburg VA 24061, USA +1(540)231-0483 asalado@vt.edu Copyright © 201X by Xu and Salado. Permission granted to INCOSE to publish and use. Abstract. In current practice, a verification strategy is defined at the beginning of an acquisition program and is agreed upon by customer and contractor at contract signature. Hence, the resources necessary to execute verification activities at various stages of the system development are allo- cated and committed at the beginning, when a small amount of knowledge about the system is available. However, contractually committing to a fixed verification strategy at the beginning of an acquisition program fundamentally leads to suboptimal acquisition performance. Essentially, the uncertain nature of system development will make verification activities that were not previously planned necessary, and will make some of the planned ones unnecessary. In order to cope with these challenges, this paper presents an approach to apply set-based design to the design of veri- fication activities to enable the execution of dynamic contracts for verification strategies, ulti- mately resulting in more valuable verification strategies than current practice. Introduction Verification activities, which usually take the form of a combination of analyses, inspections, and tests, consume a significant part, if not the biggest part, of the development costs of large-scale engineered systems (Engel, 2010). Verification occurs at various levels of a system’s decomposition and at different times during its life cycle (Engel, 2010). Under a common master plan, low level verification activities are executed as risk mitigation activities, such as early identification of problems, or because some of them are not possible at higher levels of integration (Engel, 2010). Therefore, a verification strategy is defined “aiming at maximizing confidence on verification coverage, which facilitates convincing a customer that contractual obligations have been met; minimizing risk of undetected problems, which is important for a manufacturer’s rep- utation and to ensure customer satisfaction once the system is operational; and minimizing in- vested effort, which is related to manufacturer’s profit” (Salado, 2015). Essentially, verification activities are the vehicle by which contractors can collect evidence of contractual fulfillment in acquisition programs. In current practice, a verification strategy is defined at the beginning of an acquisition program and is agreed upon by customer and contractor at contract signature. Hence, the resources necessary to 23345837, 2019, 1, Downloaded from https://incose.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2334-5837.2019.00608.x by Virginia Tech, Wiley Online Library on [06/12/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License