Speaking with a Commonality Language: A Lexicon for System and Component Development: A Lexicon for System and Component Development (Technical Report)

As the U.S. Army becomes increasingly interested in "commonality"--the sharing of common parts across different entities--there is a need for a clearer definition of the concept. Motivated by the reported costs arising from a lack of clear definitions during recent Army acquisition processes and by cases in which unclear definitions have led to significant problems, this report offers a new, more rigorous lexicon and illustrative examples.