Whitepaper

Analyze the Possibilities with GCAM® Simulation Software

Decisions are complex. What if you could model and explore the effects of any decision before you implement it in the real world?

At SPA, we recognize that each client faces unique challenges––and the solutions to these challenges are not one-size-fits-all. Our clients require tailored models that can rapidly and flexibly examine numerous options and allow them to make well-informed, cost-saving decisions. The models must have the intelligence to simulate real-world behaviors and the ability to account for uncertainty. As a leader in modeling and simulation software design, SPA first recognized the need for the GCAM software suite over 25 years ago. Since the original successful launch over two decades ago, we have continuously sustained our investment in the suite to ensure timely improvements and upgrades in modeling capabilities, processing power, and speed. Today, SPA is committed to ensuring our GCAM development environment remains state-of-the-art in authoritative models, always ready to inform national security decisions and other complex challenges.

To achieve our clients’ distinct analytic objectives, our expert analysts use the GCAM software suite to develop custom modeling and simulation software applications. We begin by defining scenario elements, such as terrain, platforms, systems, people, and processes along with their conditional behaviors. Scenarios are dynamic by design. Each element can be programmed to exploit gaps and vulnerabilities based on interactions and decision-making as the scenario plays out. We can easily run a scenario hundreds of times, changing parameter values that include number of units (ships, for example), speed, sensors, and so on. Possibilities abound.

When clients can investigate and understand outcomes within the safety of the application, they can make the best decision that maximizes their budget and minimizes risk for their organization. Our clients compare, prioritize, and decide difficult issues with ease. We regularly tackle challenges such as these:

Capability and Investment Trade-offs Analysis
Operations Analysis
Logistics Analysis
Risk Assessments
Concept of Operation Development
Force Structure Analysis
Campaign Analysis

GCAM modeling and simulation software provides our clients with unique, objective, and defensible evidence for making smart cost-effective decisions, time after time.

GCAM Simulation Software Highlights

Make Decisions with Confidence

Our clients have relied on GCAM models for a quarter of a century to answer their most challenging questions and evaluate a variety of options. The GCAM simulation engine powers a rigorous Monte Carlo-style modeling environment to understand risk and uncertainty, allowing our clients to enter into decisions with the objective evidence and defensible analysis required to support their most critical decisions.

Fast and Flexible

SPA’s intuitive, object-oriented modeling language enables our expert analysts to rapidly develop an array of custom-tailored scenarios and assessments. These models can be developed using data from any source, including federating with other computer models, while accounting for real-world uncertainty.

Wide-ranging Customized Applications

Since the GCAM software suite’s inception, our analysts have developed hundreds of customized applications to support client investigations, from engineering design and logistics to operations and multi-warfare campaign analysis. The GCAM modeling environment has assisted numerous, longstanding clients from within the Dept. of Defense, DARPA, and the Dept. of Homeland Security, to cite several examples. Internationally, we also support the Australian Defence Force and the Royal Canadian Navy with applications designed for their unique challenges.

Proven

SPA has provided GCAM-based analytic support to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations Analysis and Assessments Division for over 25 years. Our client entrusts us with producing analytic baselines for all major campaigns and Department of Defense planning scenarios. In addition, we can examine excursions from the baseline in compressed timelines, ranging from less than 1 week to 3 months.

GCAM® is a registered trademark of Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. (Registered United States Patent and Trademark Office).

Please see our project gallery below for examples of missions we’ve supported with GCAM® Simulation Software.

Previous Next

GCAM Project Gallery

Countering Unmanned Systems

SPA helped the Navy analyze UAS risks and mitigations by combining our extensive experience in threat assessment, policy and operations, and Modeling and Simulation (M&S) to inform the identification, selection, deployment, and modification of systems that counter UAS (C-UAS). SPA’s comprehensive and integrated approach involving numerous government stakeholders across the DoD, DHS, FAA, FCC and more, enabled rapid and continued improvement of effective C-UAS solutions.

View case study

Theater Anti-Submarine Warfare

The Theater Anti-Submarine Warfare (TASW) Model examines potential futures for a variety of joint force planning scenarios in a maritime warfare environment. Developed using the GCAM software suite, the TASW model allows stakeholders to assess warfighting instructions and explore the impact of alternative technologies, capabilities, and force structures within the confines of a synthetic environment.

Joint Pacific Air Campaign Simulation

The Joint Pacific Air Campaign Simulation (JPACS) investigates options for enhancing Air Superiority during complex air campaigns within a major warfight. Powered by the GCAM simulation engine, JPACS easily evaluates numerous operational concepts and elements, as well as logistics and sustainment constraints to measure force survivability, force sustainability, and operational effectiveness for a range of force package solutions.