A Technical History of the SEI

Introduction
In December 1984, the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded a contract to Carnegie Mellon
University (CMU) to manage a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC)
called the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). The contract award was based on a competitive
request for proposals (RFP) issued to the university community in May 1984. Seven university or
university/industry consortia offered proposals, and Carnegie Mellon University was the successful
proposer, in part because of its strong engineering and computer science programs and the
“engineering mindset” in its research efforts. The SEI is a university-based FFRDC following the
model of Lincoln Labs, which is part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This designation
distinguishes the SEI from the systems engineering FFRDCs, such as MITRE and Aerospace
Corp., which are free-standing, non-profit corporations.
Responsibility for contract management and technical oversight was assigned to the Air Force
Systems Command (AFSC) at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. While the contract remained
with AFSC, responsibility for technical oversight was moved from AFSC to the Office of
the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Advanced Technology ((OUSD(R&AT)) in
1987, then to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1988, and then to
OUSD for Acquisition and Technology (A&T), now OUSD for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics
(AT&L), in 1998. These changes brought new perspectives to the oversight and concomitant
changes to the strategic imperatives, which are discussed in subsequent paragraphs, along
with the context.
The DoD Software Environment in 1984 Motivated Formation of the SEI
The proposal to create the SEI originated in 1982 as part of the proposed Software Technology for
Adaptable, Reliable Systems (STARS) program—a DoD software initiative developed by a joint
task force of DoD software professionals with support from industry [DoD 1983, Druffel 1983].
At the time, DoD leaders realized that software technology was becoming the enabler for flexibility
and integration in mission-critical systems, but they also recognized that software was often
the cause of system delays and failures. A task force was chartered to develop an understanding of
the underlying problems and propose a broad research program for DoD software-reliant systems
[DoD 1982].
Although the DoD had traditionally been the leader in the application of computing, that trend reversed
dramatically in the 1970s for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty the DoD was experiencing
in applying evolving technology [Mowery 1996]. The military departments faced major
challenges in developing software for mission-critical systems because a significant
component involved managing hardware devices (such as sensors and actuators) and control systems
in real time, that is, within the cycle time of the sensor and control mechanisms, often milliseconds
or microseconds (now nanoseconds). To meet the efficiency needs of these real-time systems
and the need for interfaces to hardware devices, software for DoD systems was developed in
assembly language and/or other low-level languages, some of which were specific to a military
department or program (e.g., Jovial for the Air Force and CMS-2 for the Navy). To a large extent,
programming at these low levels precluded the use of advancing technology and tools. As a result,
the DoD experienced increased development, quality assurance, and sustainment costs, and protracted
schedules. In addition, low-level code was an inhibitor to the greater levels of integration
needed as the DoD began attempting to field larger systems.
CMU/SEI-2016-SR-027 | SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INSTITUTE | CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 3
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