Reshaping our world through virtual collaboration

To shrink the protracted length of total system and product development life cycles (DLCs), public and private sector organizations and their cross-functional Integrated Product Teams (IPTs) have moved away from serial to concurrent collaboration to reshape organizational and stakeholder worlds. More recently, some organizations are now using real-time, on-demand, 3D life size fully- and semi-immersive virtual collaborative environments (VCEs) for DLC applications. To transform the U.S. military to meet future needs, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Army have implemented visionary, strategic, and technology-enabling initiatives called Simulation Based Acquisition (SBA) and Simulation and Modeling for Acquisition, Requirements and Training (SMART), respectively. Transformation-enabling technologies making SBA and SMART realities are: modeling and simulation (M&S), virtual reality (VR), and advanced collaborative environments (ACEs). Results have included the significant reduction in the use of traditional hardware prototypes and demonstration models, DLC times, and program costs. This case study focuses on the theories and foundations that led to the development of an ACE "toolset," empirical testing and results, and the identification of advantages and applications of its use by operational collaborative IPTs. In spite of the success of this early ACE development, additional research and operational issues, empirical testing, and economic analysis remains.