Evolutionary Process for Integrating COTS-Based Systems
What 
EPIC is an engineering process for systems built with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. Throughout the system lifecycle, EPIC:
- Helps analyze and leverage marketplace forces
- Facilitates interaction among stakeholders
- Synchronizes developmentand needed business process changes
- Measures progress and mitigate high priority risks
An organization using EPIC simultaneously considers factors from the four spheres that must be orchestrated to achieve a system solution:
- stakeholder needs and business processes
- product marketplace
- system architecture and design
- programmatics (budget, schedule) and risk considerations
How
Following EPIC, a project proceeds through multiple iterations with activities designed to converge the four spheres through simultaneous refinement and tradeoffs. The result is a continuous increase in corporate comprehension of, and stakeholder buy-in to, the eventual solution. We can depict this progress as a wedge with the spheres increasingly overlapping as time goes on.
EPIC expands upon RUP, the Rational Unified Process. As in RUP, the iterations are grouped in four phases demarcated by clearly defined anchor point agreements. For each phase, EPIC provides detailed guidance on
- the area of greatest increase in corporate comprehension
- the activities to be conducted
- the artifacts to be produced
A key element of each iteration is construction of an executable representation codifying the current state of knowledge.
EPIC Documents
Two Minute Overview
EPIC
Overview - a technical report
EPIC
- the complete process description
EPIC info sheet
The other EPIC pages
Phases and Anchor Points
Activities
Artifacts
Executable Representations