Title: Agile engineering for development of the Next Generation Air Transportation System

Authors: Nadya Subowo

Addresses: The MITRE Corporation, Center for Advanced Aviation System Development, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA 22102, USA

Abstract: Today's systems engineering methodologies are inflexible in accommodating unanticipated changes that may arise during development. Significant changes, including programmatic, technical, or budgetary, impact the developer's ability to deliver a successful system on time and on budget. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently transforming its legacy air traffic management systems into one that that is more efficient and safer. Acknowledging the limitations of current systems engineering methodologies and the aviation community's pressure on the FAA to deliver these modernised systems by 2025, this paper explores the opportunity of transforming the current process into one that can rapidly deliver operational functionality to the aviation community, and is more responsive to discoveries and shifts in operational needs.

Keywords: Next Generation Air Transportation System; NextGen; Federal Aviation Administration; FAA; agile systems engineering; agile engineering; National Airspace System; NAS; aviation management; aviation safety; agility; case study; air transport; USA; United States; air traffic management; operational functionality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJASM.2015.070608

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management, 2015 Vol.8 No.2, pp.163 - 180

Received: 10 Oct 2014
Accepted: 25 Apr 2015
Published online: 13 Jul 2015 *

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