The Offices of the Deputy Assistant Secretaries of Defense (ODASD) for Materiel Readiness (MR) and Maintenance Policy & Programs (MPP), working with the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) are pleased to announce the deployment of a new “Public-Private Partnering for Sustainment: A DoD Guidebook.”

Available on the comprehensive Product Support Policy, Guidance, Tools & Training site on the DAU Logistics Community of Practice (LOG CoP), this important new DoD guidebook addresses public-private partnering as a powerful enabler of integrated product support. Although the majority of existing partnerships center on the depot maintenance function, there is a desire within DOD to expand partnering opportunities to encompass a broader range of sustainment functions and processes.  The guide provides current best practices and is intended to be used by Program and Product Managers (PMs), Product Support Managers (PSM), Product Support Integrators (PSI), and government and commercial industry Product Support Providers (PSP). It builds on a body of information collected by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Maintenance Policy and Programs (OSD Maintenance) with contributions from the Industrial Integration IPT (with representatives from OSD, the Services, industry and academia under the charter of the November 2009 Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Product Support Assessment (WSAR-PSA)). It reflects defense policy on depot maintenance partnering (DoD Instruction 4151.21 Public-Private Partnerships for Depot-Level Maintenance), as well as the legal authorities that authorize public-private partnerships and provides updated data about innovative approaches, successful implementations, and information resources for partnering beyond depot maintenance.

The Partnering Guidebook is an integral part of a suite of product support guides on the DAU Product Support Guidance site; it is particularly intended to be used in conjunction with the DoD Product Support Manager (PSM) Guidebook as well as a range of related partnering resources available on the OSD Maintenance Partnering site. It is currently available in a downloadable PDF version, with plan to launch a hyperlinked web-enabled version from the same website in the coming weeks.