Successful acquisition and sustainment outcomes in the Department of Defense are dependent on a wide range of functional communities working together. Interdisciplinary integration and multi-functional alignment as you would expect are a key aspect of how we develop and promulgate our learning assets here at DAU. To achieve required acquisition and sustainment outcomes, breaking down functional silos is often a matter of both necessity and practicality. You might ask, what do you mean? Can you give me an example?

Well, do your duties and responsibilities involve the Configuration Management arena? If so, have you completed our LOG 204 Configuration Management online training (OLT) course or read through our Configuration Management ACQuipedia article? If your answers are yes, are you also aware that our DAU College of Contract Management (CCM) offers several related learning assets entitled CME 202 Configuration Management System Review and CME 204 Engineering Change Proposal Review? If not encourage you to check into these courses.

Or perhaps your duties and responsibilities focus on the vitally important Product Support Analysis processes? If so, have you completed our instructor-led training (ILT) LOG 211 Supportability Analysis course, or our CLL 008 Designing for Supportability, CLL 012 Supportability Analysis, CLL 057 Level of Repair Analysis – Introduction, and CLL 058 Level of Repair Analysis (LORA) – Theory & Principles OLT courses? How about our Product Support Analysis, Failure Modes & Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Failure Modes, Effects & Criticality Analysis (FMECA), Failure Reporting, Analysis, and Corrective Action System (FRACAS), Maintenance Task Analysis (MTA) or Level of Repair Analysis (LORA) ACQuipedia articles? If your answers are yes, are you also aware that our DAU College of Contract Management (CCM) offers several related learning assets entitled CLX 160, Introduction to Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA) and CMQ 260 Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA)? Or access the MIL-HDBK-502A Product Support Analysis available from the DAU Integrated Product Support Guidebook Suite. Yet another opportunity to expand your horizons!

Or how about Supply Chain Management (SCM)? In addition to our LOG 102 Fundamentals of Systems Sustainment Management and CLL 037 DoD Supply Chain Fundamentals OLT courses, what about our Supply Chain Management (SCM) ACQuipedia article? Or perhaps a couple of courses outside the life cycle logistics portfolio that you might not have thought to have taken a look at such as CME 130 Surveillance Implications of Manufacturing and Subcontractor or perhaps CME 230 Production Planning and Control (PP&C)? Well worth looking into to enhance your expertise and professional development.

The point of these three examples (and the many others I could have included) is that our DAU learning assets run the gamut of instructor-led classroom courses, online training courses, short duration continuous learning modules, and ACQuipedia articles to name just a few options available for the broadly-based, multi-functional defense acquisition workforce. Moreover, the interdisciplinary nature of these topics lend themselves to opening the aperture to include learning assets beyond our logistics portfolio. The result is a richness of multi-functional perspectives, insights, and professional development opportunities available from your teammates here at DAU.