A few years back, I wrote a blog post entitled “Foundational Tenets of Long-term Product Support and Sustainment.” Before proceeding, encourage you to go back and give it a quick read.
I’m often asked to sum up the objectives for life cycle logistics community in a short, concise “elevator speech.’ I believe the essence of life cycle logistics – or product support for that matter – can be articulated in just two words: “affordable readiness.” Reality, of course, is it’s a bit more complex than that, so in keeping with the requirement that an elevator speech by definition must be concise, let's open the aperture a bit and permit me to think out loud for a moment.
Agree or disagree: Within a life cycle systems management framework, with validated warfighter performance requirements, spanning the 12 Integrated Product Support (IPS) Elements, and working collaboratively with other functional communities (including, but not limited to systems engineering and program management to name two), just about everything we do in life cycle logistics ultimately falls into two primary areas:
1. Design, develop, field, and sustain supportable weapon systems that continuously reduce the demand for Logistics across the life cycle. How? Drive up:
- Availability
- Reliability
- Maintainability
2. Design, develop, field, and implement product support strategies that are effective and efficient across the life cycle. How? Drive down:
- Mean Down Time
- O&S Cost
- Logistics Footprint
Assuming you concur, you might ask how can I know if I'm successful. How can measure, track, and improve these areas for my program? Good news is there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of sub-tier metrics at our disposal we could leverage to achieve these basic, foundational goals. Maintainability, for example might include metrics tied to measure accessibility, modularity, testability, time to repair, mean down time, which of course can include a preventative maintenance component, might include logistics response time, turnaround time, supply chain management related measures tied to customer wait time, requisition response time, and backorders, and so on.
Fortunately we also have a vast array of resources available when identifying product support requirements and metrics, developing and implementing product support strategies, crafting and executing product support arrangements, and providing support to the warfighter. Indeed too many to count. At a top-level, a few include:
- Key Product Support Policy, Guidance, Tools and Training
- DoD PBL Guidebook, Appendix F – PBL Metrics
- MIL-HDBK 260 Reference Data for Logistics Metrics
- Life Cycle Sustainment Plan (LCSP) Outline
- Manual For The Operation Of The Joint Capabilities Integration And Development System (JCIDS)
- DoD O&S Cost Management Guidebook
- DoD Product Support Manager's Guidebook
- Various ACQuipedia Articles, including Design Interface and Supportability Analysis articles
Simple? Not at all. Challenging? Yep. Time consuming? You bet. Worthwhile? Without question. Important enough to do right? Absolutely...our warfighters are counting on it.
What do you think? Agree? Disagree? What's missing?
