Government Furnished Equipment (GFE)

Designs and/or articles that are provided by the Government acquisition customer as part of the system. The use of GFE can significantly complicate development, but sometimes there are no good alternatives to the practice. When GFE is itself not yet complete, it can take of the form of a directed design solution.

The notion that GFE can exist is itself sufficient to deny the notion that pure “top-down development” is the only valid System Engineering approach.