Production Readiness Review (PRR)
DAU GLOSSARY DEFINITION
A formal examination of a program to determine if the design is ready for production and if the prime contractor and major subcontractors have accomplished adequate production planning without incurring unacceptable risks that will breach thresholds of schedule, performance, cost, or other established criteria. PRRs are normally performed as a series of reviews toward the end of Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase. A final PRR should occur at the completion of the EMD phase and assess the manufacturing and quality risk as the program proceeds into Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP). Under some circumstances, a PRR may also be appropriate during the LRIP effort to assess manufacturing risk for full-rate production.
Production Readiness Review (PRR) - A formal examination of a program to determine if the design is ready for production and if the producer has accomplished adequate production planning. PRRs are normally performed as a series of reviews toward the end of Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase. Under some circumstances a PRR may also be appropriate in the Production and Deployment (P&D) phase.
A Production Readiness Review (PRR) examines a program to determine if:
- The design is ready for production, and
- The producer has accomplished adequate production planning and process – proofing
What constitutes “adequate” production planning? Because adequacy is an imprecise measure, the degree of adequacy should be addressed within the context of the specific program, in terms of the risk levels that have been determined to be acceptable for that program (Defense Manufacturing Management Guide for Program Managers). Thus on a simple, non-complex product “build-to-print” may be adequate while a complex product may require detailed work instructions with assembly drawings.
The PRR attempts to verify that the production design, planning and the associated preparations for producing the system have in fact progressed to the point where a manufacturing commitment can be made without incurring unacceptable risk of breaching the established thresholds of cost, schedule and performance or other criteria.
Obviously there is no such thing as a risk-free program. The objective of the PRR is to measure the level of manufacturing risk and then to identify actions to mitigate those risks. A number of program offices have taken an incremental approach to PRR risk assessment by starting early in the development phase focusing on the work breakdown structure and key/critical subsystems, items and components. The reviews are accomplished incrementally as the design evolves and matures and testing is accomplished. The Program Office continually rolls the knowledge from these incremental PRRs into the assessment of readiness for the system as a whole.
A second concern is whether the assessment is in support of a low rate production (LRIP) or full rate production (FRP). For FRP, a complete evaluation of system readiness, problem resolution, and adequacy of planning are needed. Where possible the objective is to quantify the validating data.
Note: Typically LRIP is as ten percent (10%) of the total production for many DoD items.