Integrated Product Support (IPS) Element - Manpower & Personnel

The objective of Manpower and Personnel Activities is to identify, plan, resource and acquire personnel – both civilian and military - with the grades and skills required:

1. to operate equipment, to complete the missions, to effectively fight or support the fight, to win our nation’s wars;
2. to effectively support the warfighter, and to ensure the best capability is available for the warfighter when needed.

Early identification is essential. If the needed manpower is an additive requirement to existing manpower levels of an organization, a formalized process of identification and justification must be made to higher authority.

Key Manpower & Personnel IPS Element activities according to Appendix A of the DoD Product Support Manager (PSM) Guidebook and the IPS Element Guidebook include:

• Identification and acquisition of required numbers of active and reserve military officers and enlisted personnel as well as civilian personnel with the skills and grades required for system operation.
• Identification and acquisition of required numbers of active and reserve military officers and enlisted personnel as well as civilian personnel with the skills and grades required for system maintenance.
• Identification and acquisition of required numbers of active and reserve military officers and enlisted personnel as well as civilian personnel with the skills and grades required for system support.
• Wartime versus peacetime personnel requirements determination and management
• Additional personnel identification and justification process management

Terms NOT Interchangeable

It is important to understand that the terms "Manpower" and "Personnel" are not interchangeable terms:

Manpower represents the number of personnel or positions required to perform a specific task. This task can be as simple as performing a routine administrative function, or as complex as operating a large repair depot. Manpower analysts determine the number of people required, authorized, and available to operate, maintain, support, and provide training for the system. Manpower requirements are based on the range of operations during peacetime, low intensity conflict, and wartime. Requirements should consider continuous, sustained operations and required surge capability.

Personnel, on the other hand, indicates those human aptitudes (i.e., cognitive, physical, and sensory capabilities), knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience levels that are needed to properly perform job tasks. Personnel factors are used to develop the military occupational specialties (or equivalent DoD Component personnel system classifications) and civilian job series of system operators, maintainers, trainers, and support personnel. Personnel officials contribute to the Defense acquisition process by ensuring that the program manager pursues engineering designs that minimize personnel requirements and keep the human aptitudes necessary for operation and maintenance of the equipment at levels consistent with what will be available in the user population at the time the system is fielded.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities (KSA)

Personnel capabilities are normally reflected as KSAs. The availability of personnel and their needed KSAs should be identified early in the acquisition process. The DoD Components have a limited inventory of personnel available, each with a finite set of cognitive and psychomotor abilities, sot the needed KSAs could affect specific system thresholds. Manpower requirements are driven by workload and shall be established at the minimum levels necessary to accomplish mission and performance objectives. Remember:  Manpower is a resource, so changes in manpower need to be preceded by changes to the programs, missions, and functions that require manpower resources.

Workforce Mix

DoD Instruction (DoDI) 1100.22, Policy and Procedures for Determining Workforce Mix, specifies the appropriate mix of military and DoD civilian manpower and private sector support. This DoDI implements policy established in DoD Directive (DoDD) 1100.4, Guidance for Manpower Management, and provides manpower mix criteria and guidance for risk assessments to be used to identify and justify activities that are inherently governmental (IG); commercial (exempt from private sector performance); and commercial (subject to private sector performance).

It is DoD policy that the workforce of the DoD shall be established to successfully execute defense missions at a low to moderate level of risk. Accordingly, risk mitigation shall take precedence over cost savings when necessary to maintain appropriate control of Government operations and missions. The DoD workforce shall have sufficient flexibility to reconstitute or expand the capabilities of the military services on short notice to meet a resurgent or increased threat to US national security.

DoD Components shall, as part of their Manpower Management program, develop a strategic manpower planning process for responding to fundamental changes to the Department's strategic objectives; roles and missions; force structure; and management and Warfighting strategies. A key objective of strategic manpower planning shall be to develop a workforce that can be reconfigured quickly to respond to changing threats and contingency plans; adjust to new mobilization plans; and evolve to support new Warfighting capabilities, business practices, and organizations. The PSM will provide inputs with supporting analysis as required by the DoD oversight component office for manpower wartime estimates of activities within the scope of life cycle product support.

The Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R) is the proponent for all manpower and personnel planning.