Part 2: The Direct Impact – How MOSA Drives Agility and Affordability

Modern defense systems are expected to evolve faster than ever, yet traditional architectures often slow that progress. Vendor lock, complex integrations, and long development cycles limit how quickly new technology can reach the field.

A Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) changes that dynamic. By organizing systems around open interfaces and modular components, it allows new capabilities to be introduced without costly, large-scale overhauls, helping reduce long-term life-cycle sustainment challenges.

In this post, we’ll look at how MOSA directly influences two of the most critical measures of readiness: agility and affordability. Each stems from the same core principle — designing for flexibility from the start.

How MOSA Drives Agility (Speed & Flexibility)

MOSA’s emphasis on modular design and open standards allows systems to improve agility, quickly adapting to new threats, technological advancements, and changing mission requirements.

For example, the modular design approach driven by MOSA, separates the system into highly cohesive, loosely coupled, and severable components (hardware and software). This Eenables rapid technology refresh because an individual component (e.g., a new sensor, processor, or software module) can be replaced or upgraded without affecting the rest of the system. This drastically reduces the time and risk of fielding new capabilities and allows the DoD to pace new threats.

Further open standards use widely supported, non-proprietary standards for the interfaces between modules. This ensures interoperability and portability. Components from different vendors or programs can communicate and function together seamlessly, making it easy to swap one capability for another (e.g., quickly configuring a platform for different missions).

An incremental acquisition approach that can be implemented due to the modularity allows for the system to be acquired and developed in small, manageable pieces. This supports an iterative development methodology, allowing the organization to field a capable system now and build upon it later with continuous, smaller updates, rather than waiting years for a massive, monolithic upgrade.

Innovation and competition is encouraged by defining a common, open interface. New and smaller vendors can design modules that plug into the system. This further accelerates the introduction of innovation by lowering the barrier to entry for technology suppliers, ensuring the system can leverage the latest industry best-of-breed technology.

How MOSA Reduces Costs (Affordability)

MOSA is a cost-reduction strategy, primarily by shifting costs from the long, expensive life-cycle sustainment phase to a more efficient, competitive acquisition phase.

The development and maintenance of open standards eliminate the reliance on a single vendor’s proprietary technology. This breaks “vendor lock,” a platform or system reliant on a single supplier’s technology. This is the most significant financial benefit of the MOSA approach, as it forces competition for maintenance, upgrades, and replacement parts throughout the system’s entire life cycle, dramatically reducing sustainment costs.

A system with a modular design ensures that components or subsystems are severable and easily replaceable or upgradable. This reduces maintenance and obsolescence (O&M) costs. Rather than overhauling an entire system when one part fails or becomes obsolete, only the affected module needs to be replaced or upgraded. This allows for the competitive procurement of a substitute module.

When competition within a system is fostered, affordability is a primary result. If the DoD owns the key interface specifications of the system, it allows any qualified vendor to compete to provide a component or module. This reduces acquisition costs over time due to a broader, more competitive industrial base bidding on contracts for modules and upgrades.

Finally, the reuse of standardized modules and software across different programs and platforms drives affordability. Maximizing asset reuse eliminates the need to custom-develop the same functional capability multiple times across the DoD enterprise.

Advancing Readiness Through MOSA

Rapid upgrade and faster innovation are key tenets of the modular open systems approach, benefiting the warfighter to bring capabilities to bear faster and more efficiently. Reducing vendor lock, simplified maintenance and upgrade strategies, and reuse of technology are all affordability mechanisms stemming from MOSA.

As defense systems continue to grow in complexity, adopting a Modular Open Systems Approach is no longer optional — it’s essential. Get in touch with the team at New Wave Design to learn more about how we can help integrate MOSA principles into your program architecture.