Well-defined intended uses: an explicit requirement for accreditation of modeling and simulation applications

A modeling and simulation (M&S) application is built for a specific purpose and its acceptability assessment is carried out with respect to that purpose. The accreditation decision for an M&S application is also made with respect to that purpose. The purpose is commonly expressed in terms of intended uses. The quality of expressing the intended uses significantly affects the quality of the acceptability assessment as well as the quality of making the accreditation decision. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance in proper definition of the intended uses. It uses an M&S application for simulating the U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) system design as an example to illustrate the definition of the intended uses