Thanks to invaluable support from a range of key DoD stakeholders, DAU successfully completed a Student Pilot of the revised LOG 101 Fundamentals of Life Cycle Logistics distance learning course June 12-16, at the DAU Fort Belvoir campus. This pilot represented the culmination of significant efforts to develop a revision to the initial Life Cycle Logistics Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) certification course.

Pilot participants hailed from every aspect of the actual student population, with representatives from each of the military Services and the Fourth Estate. In addition to registered workforce members who had agreed to support the pilot, participants also included recruited subject matter experts (SME’s) (also representing every Service and the Fourth Estate) and DAU faculty members. Students submitted four hundred change requests, with over ninety percent adjudicated before the completion of the pilot. The revised course contains a number of innovations, including extensive integration of workflow learning assets include links to product support guidebooks, communities of practice, ACQuipedia articles, micro-videos, and related magazine articles.

The new version of this foundational logistics course emphasizes the role of the Life Cycle Logistician in integrating the twelve Integrated Product Support (IPS) Elements to develop an affordable and effective product support strategy. The learner is engaged through practical examples and real-world product support issues to illustrate key learning objectives. This course leverages the systems acquisition management fundamentals you learned in the prerequisite to see how product support strategies are designed that will ensure delivery of affordable weapon systems, across their life cycle. The course encourages learners to think critically about the interaction of IPS Elements to each other and the activities associated with product support strategy development. This course covers a wide range of product support activities; from translating warfighter requirements to developing sound strategies for effective risk management in a product support context.

Student feedback indicates improved engagement, broader coverage of introductory information, and reduced time required for completion of the revised course, which will be re-designated as LOG 100 when fielded and available to the acquisition workforce beginning in Fiscal Year 2018.