The recently released October 2010 issue of the highly-regarded Defense Acquisition Review Journal (ARJ),a scholarly peer-reviewed professional acquisition research journal, contains a rather intriguing article entitled “Performance-Based Life Cycle Product Support Strategies: Enablers for More Effective Government Participation” which I recommend members of the Life Cycle Logistics workforce, as well as other Defense Acquisition Workforce functional communities (including, but not limited to program management, contracting, and systems engineering) take a few minutes to read and consider.

In this article, the authors “examine four separate case studies of Army, Navy, and Air Force programs and organizations that they believe “demonstrate a spectrum of viable practices available to government organizations to allow them to compete on merit for business as product support integrators and product support providers” in the context of a Performance Based Life Cycle Product Support (PBL) strategy. The article examines:

·         Case Study No. 1: An Environment of Success, Huntsville

·         Case Study No. 2: From Source of Repair to Business Partner, Jacksonville

·         Case Study No. 3: The Joint STARS Contract–A Decade of Success

·         Case Study No. 4: The Upstarts–Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division

As the article’s authors describe it, “organic government-owned and -managed product support organizations are often viewed as less capable than their commercial counterparts. In fact, highly effective government organization participants in product support do exist, supported by a host of success enablers in use at government-owned and -managed organizations across the Services. These enablers can stimulate best-value participation by government organizations in performance-based life cycle support strategies. More effective government participation results in increased synergy and collaboration for the warfighter, the organic structure, and the taxpayer. This article documents and describes some of the success enablers used to catalyze more effective integration of the government-managed support structure into the industrial base.”

What do you think? Does this article make sense to you? Do the authors make a compelling case? What are these organizations doing right? Do you agree with the authors’ recommendations? Are these four organizations’ PBL strategies worthy of emulating? Read this article to find out!