Finding itself in a currently frugal environment, the U.S. Army needs to find ways to ensure that its scientists and engineers are designing both effective and affordable systems. The third in a series, this monograph expands and applies RAND's portfolio analysis and management (PortMan) method to address the problem of selecting U.S. Army engineering and manufacturing development projects to develop affordable systems. This monograph describes the application of the method, model, and simulation developed and demonstrated in "Toward Affordable Systems" and "Toward Affordable Systems II." While the previous two companion monographs accounted for the remaining research and development cost of each project, the total remaining lifecycle budget of systems to be fielded based on the project portfolio, and the uncertainty in the success of research and development projects to meet their objectives and lead to fielded systems, this monograph includes in the analysis uncertainty in the lifecycle costs of individual systems to be fielded and uncertainty in the total remaining lifecycle budget for the portfolio. Together these three monographs demonstrate a method, model, and simulation that the Army can use to analyze and manage portfolios at any stage of the research and development process.

Introduction -- Description of the method -- Requirements, systems, and expected value estimates for model demonstration -- Optimal N/EMD portfolio with full consideration of RTBF systems -- An optimal N/EMD portfolio, with approximate consideration of RTBF systems -- Findings and recommendations -- Appendix: expected values of N/EMD-derived and RTBF systems.