Systems Engineering Projects: Military v Commercial

Military	Commercial
Systems expected to be multi-role, and if circumstances change will be expected to be capable of changing role (within their environment)	Systems not generally expected to be multi-role.	Only a few types of military systems exist in any given environment (eg. air, land, sea). They will be called upon to do whatever needs to be done in that environment, even if not envisaged during initial design.
Environmental concerns important during peace time, but much less so in time of war.	Environmental concerns important.	Eg. 'noise pollution'. Loud military aircraft near civilian populations important during peace time. Would not be during war.
Safety of high importance during peace. During war it may be necessary to turn off certain safety features in order to achieve high 'performance'.	Safety paramount.	Reduced safety is accepted for military systems than commercial systems (if justified by need for 'performance', and for military systems even further reduced safety is acceptable during war.
At the edge of technology.	Uses advanced but proven technology.	In the past military systems were pushing the limits of technology. They had to in order to retain an 'advantage'. Where as commercial systems looked to exploit the technology rather than 'invent' it. The onus is however changing.
High support costs are borne	High support costs can lead to business failures	This is rather a difference between government sponsored systems (as military systems are) and business sponsored systems (as many but not all civilian systems are). Whilst high support costs have always been a problem for business sponsored systems, they are less so for government sponsored systems despite the emphasis that is now often placed on 'Through-Life Costs'.

Military vis-a-vis Commercial