CADE

Vision

CADE seeks to provide comprehensive data availability and automate common data visualization methods to help depict each program’s unique story. Data in CADE consist of:

  • Contractor Cost Data Reports (CCDRs/1921s): The primary means within the Department of Defense (DoD) to systematically collect actual data on the development, production and sustainment costs incurred by contractors performing DoD acquisition contracts. A new generation of comprehensive contract level cost data collection has been defined (the FlexFile) to increase efficiency, improve data quality and ensure completeness. More on the cost community’s FlexFile initiative here.
  • Cost Analysis Requirements Descriptions (CARDs) / Technical Data (1921-Ts): The CARDs and 1921-Ts capture program level programmatic and technical descriptions analysts need to build estimates, including model and variant quantities.
  • Software Resource Data Reports (SRDRs): The SRDRs capture software effort, size and schedule estimating approaches to include analogy, parametric and commercial models.
  • Institutional Knowledge: Harnessing and sharing knowledge of and across the entire community, to provide all government analysts with relevant context for the data.
  • Policy Updates and Changes: We are working hard across the cost and acquisition communities to improve old policies and dated data collection techniques. We are teaming with Industry to make sure we harness their modern and innovative practices to strategically collect the best data possible.

Vision Summary: Users will have comprehensive cost, technical and programmatic data, and institutional knowledge at their fingertips, virtually replicating the same data sets collected by our industry partners.

Goals

  • Improved Acquisition Outcomes
    • Authoritative and Quality Source Data: Cooperative strategic planning and compliance, leading to better data and improved program management
    • Cost Realism: Authoritative cost, technical and programmatic data provided for analysis facilitating quicker informed decision making, better acquisition strategies, and contract negotiations
    • Full view of Weapons Systems Program Performance: Visual analytics, trend analysis and technical data to improve cost realism and support informed decisions
  • Provide Comprehensiveness Cost, Technical and Programmatic Data
    • Having all the Department’s relevant data available to the analysts for comprehensive assessments, regardless of analysis type
    • Allows analysts to tell the program’s “story” and perform holistic analysis
  • Efficient and Effective Analysis (at all levels: OSD, Services, PMOs)
    • Improved analytical rigor and productivity: Increase output per unit time, and improve confidence in results
    • More time for analysis and execution; less time collecting and retrieving data: Provide near real-time access to better data, less allocated data, and less retrieval and processing burden for the analyst
    • More comprehensive assessments and reduced burden on industry: Reduce time for analysts to climb the program familiarization learning curve, and less re-creation and allocation of data for Industry
  • Institutionalize Community Knowledge Sharing
    • Gain insight from previous and fellow analysts and data stakeholders from the program offices to the Services to CAPE
    • Cost community ownership of leadership, training and estimating responsibility
  • Improve Quality and Transparency of Source Data
    • Revolutionizing cost data collection
    • Consistency: Working with Industry to best strategically establish the data collection systems up front, so the quality of the submitted data improves
    • Enterprise data stewardship: Department of Defense enterprise agreement and accountability for strategically collecting and using data to provide decision makers with better insight and opportunities to make better decisions
    • Reporting compliance improvement: Improvements to strategic data collection should make compliance and data validation more streamlined and easier on Industry and the government
  • Ensure Data Security
    • Proprietary and for official use only data is properly secured and protected
  • Policy
    • Improving policies and practices across the Department

History

The CAPE mission is to provide high quality, independent program analyses and insights as requested by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD(AT&L)) and Congress, in addition to the review of programs that may be, or already are, struggling in the acquisition process. CAPE initiated development of CADE, the Department's initiative to identify and integrate data from disparate databases and systems for better decision-making, management of, and oversight of the Department's acquisition portfolio. CAPE is partnering with the military department cost agencies and USD(AT&L) to house authoritative data sources that are seamlessly integrated, and easily searchable and retrievable to support analytics.