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life cycle logistics

Parts Management Streamlined Guidelines, Practices, and Procedures

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you read or hear the term “Parts Management”?  Is it wholesale or retail Supply Support functions such as inventorying assets on shelves?  Parts…
Glowing box representing selecting the ideal part

Parts Management Streamlined Guidelines, Practices, and Procedures

  1. Home
  2. Blogs
  3. Parts Management Streamlined Guidelines, Practices, and Procedures
Glowing box representing selecting the ideal part
Paul Pethel

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you read or hear the term “Parts Management”?  Is it wholesale or retail Supply Support functions such as inventorying assets on shelves?  Parts Management is often a misunderstood element of systems engineering.  It’s about selecting the right parts for your system and the role government Program Offices play in contractor part selections. The consequences of selecting the wrong parts are severe—poor reliability and performance, cyber vulnerabilities, and obsolescence issues, to name a few. Parts Management is a strategic process that focuses on selecting the best parts for use in DoD systems as well as the materials and processes used to manufacture them.  Parts Management influences the design, production, operation, support, and disposal of systems throughout their life cycle—it has significant downstream implications for Life Cycle Logisticians!

MIL-STD-3018 MIL-STD 3018 (Parts Management) was recently cancelled and a revision to MIL-STD-11991 (General Standard for Parts, Materials, and Processes) was published in ASSIST—use MIL-STD-11991B for the most current guidance in Parts Management.

Replacing MIL-STD-3018 with MIL-STD-11991 is intended to improve the execution of parts management in DoD.  The decision was made after analysis found:

  • All general and detailed requirements identified in MIL-STD-3018 were included in the general requirements of MIL-STD-11991
  • MIL-STD-11991 contains additional general requirements not included in MIL-STD-3018, and is therefore more comprehensive
  • In practice, when the requirements of MIL-STD-3018 were not detailed enough for contract requirements, MIL-STD-11991 was employed

On a related note, the SD-26 DMSMS and Parts Management Contracting Guide was updated in June 2023 to include parts management contract language (in addition to DMSMS), and this revision used MIL-STD-11991B as its framework for Parts Management.  Additionally, the SD-19 Parts Management Guidebook is being updated with a publication target by the end of 2023. This tool uses MIL-STD-11991B as its foundation.