Several weeks back I shared information about a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report of interest entitled “GAO-20-2 Navy Shipbuilding: Increasing Focus on Sustainment Early in the Acquisition Process Could Save Billions”.

Providing additional context and insights, the GAO has also posted a new “GAO Watchdog Report” podcast entitled “Navy Shipbuilding and Sustainability Costs: Watchdog Report Deep Dig Edition” in which they discuss “… the rising costs for the Navy to maintain its fleet, and what can be done to bring those costs down.” While the focus of the podcast is specifically on US Navy ships, the principles of designing for supportability and affordability early in the system life cycle are fundamental and universal, with application that transcends military service, defense agency, individual platforms, weapon systems, and acquisition or product support strategies.

For additional information on this important subject, DAU also offers a wide range of related learning assets, including:

• Overcoming Designing for Supportability Challenges LOG Blog
• ​Sustainment Planning Early in the System Life Cycle LOG Blog
• Foundational Tenets of Long-Term Product Support and Sustainment LOG Blog
• CLL 008 Designing for Supportability in DoD Systems
• CLL 012 Supportability Analysis
• CLL 030 Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)
• CLL 057 Level of Repair Analysis (LORA) – Introduction
• CLL 058 Level of Repair Analysis (LORA) – Theory & Principles
• CLE 301 Reliability and Maintainability
• ENG 0860 Planning for R&M Engineering
• LOG 104 Reliability, Availability & Maintainability (RAM)
• LOG 204 Configuration Management
• LOG 211 Supportability Analysis