Be Strategic! Leverage Technology Insertion and Refreshment on DMSMS Issues
Jay Mandelbaum and Christina Patterson
The SD-22, Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages: A Guidebook of Best Practices for Implementing a Robust DMSMS Management Program, from the Defense Standardization Office, provides guidance for determining resolutions for diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages (DMSMS) issues and how to program and budget for those resolutions.
This programming and budgeting guidance concentrates on the funding required for stand-alone DMSMS resolutions. Often, however, other planned system modifications (e.g., technology insertion, and technology refreshment) to improve performance, reliability, maintainability, and/or supportability can and do resolve DMSMS issues.
Let’s look at how a program office should use the new, 2021 SD-22 to strategically augment its proactive DMSMS management by leveraging technology insertion and refreshment to mitigate and fund the resolution of DMSMS issues. A strategic approach not only reduces cost and other ill effects of DMSMS issues, but can also result in fewer and more easily resolvable issues in the future. This approach contrasts with tactical DMSMS activities that otherwise may overlook strategic opportunities for collaboration and cooperation among a system’s multiple stakeholder communities.
Tactical Approach and Cost
DMSMS issues are inevitable. Department of Defense (DoD) program offices, particularly those responsible for long-lived systems, face DMSMS issues that require resolutions to avoid or mitigate negative impacts to cost, schedule, and readiness throughout the life of their systems. No system is immune. DMSMS issues can surface during any phase of a system’s life cycle.
Proactive DMSMS management assists program offices in extending the window of opportunity for addressing and managing the impact of identified DMSMS issues. A longer window increases the likelihood that more lower-cost resolution options will be available. When a program office identifies a DMSMS issue, it needs to determine and implement a DMSMS resolution before that DMSMS issue negatively impacts the system. In such instances, the primary driver for resolutions is not improved capability or reliability but rather the continued production or operation of the system.
DMSMS resolutions require technical approval and funding for their implementation. The responsible engineering authority for a system recommends the best resolution to pursue, while the program office determines and obtains the amount and type of funding (i.e., appropriation) required to implement the resolution. The required DMSMS resolution funding depends on the item of focus, the selected resolution type, and which cost factors are relevant. In determining their DMSMS resolution funding needs, program offices should program and budget for resolutions for all identified (known and anticipated) DMSMS issues. Such programming and budgeting are often accomplished as somewhat separate activities to resolve issues within a larger set of program office demands.
Strategic Enhancements
A strategic approach differentiates itself by explicitly leveraging other program office efforts that change the system design. Program offices can also systematically resolve DMSMS issues in conjunction with broader technology insertion or refreshment efforts to address varying purposes.
TECHNOLOGY REFRESHMENT
A type of technology-related, periodic, planned change of items within a system’s design to ensure continued access to the items necessary for system’s support.
TECHNOLOGY INSERTION
A type of technology-related change that refers to the insertion or integration of technologies in order to improve system performance.
A program office response to the changing operational requirements of a different or improved system capability could resolve a DMSMS issue. A resolution could occur through another program effort to improve the system’s reliability and maintainability. DoD is not the only organization that plans or should plan for technology refreshment and technology insertion for its system designs. Car manufacturers also employ these concepts. Car models periodically undergo major design changes. Smaller changes take place every year or two between the major periodic updates. These updates add newer technology, provide advanced capabilities, replace systems that are becoming obsolete, and so forth. The key is the planned integration of problem resolution and technology changes.
The integration of DMSMS resolutions and mitigation activities with technology insertion and refreshment efforts has often been ad hoc, but this approach is almost always suboptimal. Opportunities will be lost to lower costs and reduce the number and severity of future DMSMS issues. A more strategic approach is needed to resolve DMSMS issues through planned technology insertion and refreshment.
Efficiencies can emerge if the DMSMS resolution is purposely integrated with a larger project to modify the system’s design. Deliberately incorporating the resolution of known and anticipated DMSMS issues into such projects can prove convenient. It can also prove less costly to combine work efforts on the same subsystem. The primary purpose of such projects would not be to ensure the system’s continued production or operation but to achieve capability and performance improvements or enhance reliability or maintainability. Integration with these projects offers the opportunity to resolve DMSMS issues at lower cost than if done in an isolated or systematic manner.
Figure 1 notionally illustrates how program offices could reduce costs. It depicts total technology insertion, technology refreshment, and DMSMS resolution costs as a function of time. The bottom part of the graph assumes technology insertion costs, generally the largest cost component, to be constant over time. Above that, technology refreshment costs are shown. Under the current ad hoc procedures, these costs are assumed to be flat. If DMSMS issues are resolved ad hoc and one at a time, the cost would be expected to grow as the system ages, as depicted by the figure’s top line. Better integration, when possible, of DMSMS resolutions with technology refreshment offers an opportunity to decrease the cost. The gray-shaded area between the two top lines in the figure—one at a time, ad hoc DMSMS resolutions, and the integration of DMSMS resolutions with technology refreshment—represents the potential savings.
Given that DMSMS issues are inevitable, the only way to prevent them is to plan for replacing obsolete and soon-to-be-obsolete items before they negatively affect the system. Applying a strategic approach to DMSMS management better prepares a program office to address DMSMS resolutions optimally through their integration with planned system modifications.
Technology management represents one strategic avenue for making this integration a reality. Effective technology management, which relies on a strategic understanding of the market, results in technology roadmaps that inform acquisition and life-cycle sustainment. Intentionally resolving DMSMS issues when integrating new technologies in a system design through technology refreshment and insertion can allow program offices to ensure continued system sustainability. This can be done while fielding a system with increased reliability, lower sustainment costs, and improved performance.
Program offices can use market research on technology advances and trends to (1) improve the selection of technologies and items to incorporate into a system’s design and (2) optimize when to pursue a modification or modifications during a system’s life cycle.
Technology roadmaps represent one way for a program office to organize its knowledge of technology trends and to visualize these trends in the near, middle, and longer terms to aid decisions about when to integrate new technologies into the system’s design. Based on this information, a program office can plan for technology insertion to improve system performance and/or technology refreshment to address items known and expected to be obsolete, and to do so before they negatively impact the program office’s cost, schedule, or performance objectives.
DMSMS management can and should have a symbiotic relationship with technology roadmapping and planned technology insertion and refreshment efforts. On one hand, a program office’s DMSMS management can benefit from its technology roadmapping. By following technology trends, DMSMS management practitioners can gain an improved understanding of when an item will likely reach its end of life (EOL). Improved EOL forecasts may allow a program office more time to determine the best resolution for a DMSMS issue, which would allow a choice from among the greatest number of lower-cost resolution options. Understanding technology EOLs and any program office plans to update the item before that date may also alleviate the need for a DMSMS resolution in the first place. This would occur if there is enough of the DMSMS item in stock to satisfy demand through the time when the item will be designed out of the system. Technology roadmapping and planning for technology insertions and refreshments can also benefit from DMSMS management outputs. Knowing future DMSMS issues and when they are expected to impact the system should inform the timing and scope of a program office’s technology insertion and refreshment projects.
Program offices can further apply strategic practices when planning for a technology-related change of a system’s design. Any change to a system’s design offers the opportunity to improve DMSMS resilience. DMSMS resilience results with the following events:
- Designs minimize the incorporation of items with known or predicted obsolescence based on an improved understanding of the estimated EOLs.
- Design principles readily allow for the replacement of items without significant redesign efforts (e.g., modular open systems architectures).
The resulting designs are much less likely to face near-term DMSMS risk, and low-cost resolutions are likelier to be available if DMSMS issues emerge. Reviewing the design changes associated with technology insertion and refreshment and eliminating, when possible, items with known or forecast DMSMS issues will reduce the number of future DMSMS issues and facilitate the resolution of those that do surface.
TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP
A documentation of the technology trends associated with items on a system of interest used in development of product roadmaps to ensure continued support of the system and/or improve its performance.
Improved Transparency, Communication, and Relationships
To realize the types of efficiencies described in the previous section, DMSMS management practitioners must be involved in any program office’s technology roadmapping and technology insertion and refreshment planning that will change the system’s design. Likewise, the system’s known and anticipated DMSMS issues should inform the program office’s technology roadmapping and technology insertion and refreshment plans. The existence of multiple stakeholder communities with different sets of roles and responsibilities can prevent a program office from capitalizing on these opportunities for efficiencies. The DMSMS management community does not control technology roadmapping and technology insertion and refreshment planning processes.
Other acquisition and sustainment stakeholders are responsible for those processes. Further complicating matters, these different stakeholder communities are not always aware of the others’ efforts, and communication may be limited or, in some instances, non-existent. A lack of transparency and poor communication can result in widespread lack of program office awareness of anticipated obsolescence, technology roadmapping, and plans for technology insertion and refreshment. Without that knowledge, DMSMS management practitioners cannot best recommend when to integrate DMSMS resolutions. DMSMS management practitioners might pursue a more costly stand-alone DMSMS resolution when the issue could have been addressed as part of a larger effort. Or a correction might not have been necessary in the first place (e.g., if the item will be designed out of the system before the DMSMS issue affects cost, schedule, or performance). Similarly, planners responsible for technology insertion and refreshment projects may postpone a project, which then would require a stand-alone resolution if not addressed before the new timeline. A lack of transparency and poor communication can therefore exacerbate the likelihood of missing opportunities for efficiencies and DMSMS resolutions at lower cost.
Program offices should foster transparency and insist upon communication and building relationships between its stakeholders responsible for DMSMS management, technology roadmapping, and planning for technology insertions and refreshments. Without direction and encouragement from program office leadership, these stakeholders should identify and reach out to one another. Doing so will open the door for communication. Such relationships will improve the transparency of program office plans for system design modifications and about the existence of known and anticipated design-associated obsolescence risks. Based on this transparency, the DMSMS management community can make better recommendations about when DMSMS issues can be resolved as part of the program office’s modification efforts. Other acquisition and sustainment communities will learn the benefit of DMSMS management community inputs and ensure their integration with modification plans. The program office has the overall benefit of resolving DMSMS issues at lower cost, achieving a better understanding of the total cost of DMSMS resolutions and avoiding negative DMSMS risk impacts on cost, schedule, and performance.
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MANDELBAUM and PATTERSON are researchers at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia. They have researched obsolescence policy, guidance, and training during the last eight years, and the best practices and other observations that they identified have been instrumental in working the agenda and outputs of both the Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages (DMSMS) Working Group and Parts Standardization and Management Committee.
The authors can be contacted at [email protected] and [email protected].
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the Department of Defense. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.
