Formerly known as the Technology Development (TD) Phase, the DoDI 5000.02, dated 25 Nov 2013, changed the name of this phase to the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction (TMRR) Phase.
The purpose of this phase is to reduce technology, engineering, integration, and life cycle cost risk to the point that the decision to contract for Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) can be made with confidence for the successful program execution of development, production, and sustainment.
TMRR should include a mix of activities intended to reduce the specific risks associated with the product development. They include:
- additional design trades and requirements trades necessary to ensure an affordable product and executable development and production programs
- capability requirements are matured and validated
- affordability caps are finalized during this phase.
The TMRR Phase requires continuous and close collaboration between the program office and the requirements communities and authorities. During this phase, any realized should cost management savings should normally be used to further reduce program risk and future program costs.
TMRR normally includes competitive sources conducting technology maturation and risk reduction activities and preliminary design activities up to and including a Preliminary Design Review (PDR) prior to source selection for the EMD Phase.
Technology Readiness Levels, described in the “Technology Readiness Assessment (TRA) Guidance”, should be used to benchmark technology risk.
The Acquisition Strategy (AS) will guide this phase. The Acquisition Strategy is described in detail in the Defense Acquisition Guidebook.
Planning for the operations & support (O&S) phase should begin during TMRR, when requirements trades and early design decisions are still occurring. The Program Manager will finalize O&S requirements and decompose them into more detailed requirements to support PDR and for the following uses:
- Support system and product support package design trades
- Support test and evaluation planning
- Provide performance metrics definition for product support contracts and organic support requirements
- Provide logistics requirements, workload estimates, and logistics risk assessment
The Program Manager will integrate the product support design into the overall design process, and assess enablers that improve supportability, such as diagnostics and prognostics, for inclusion in the system performance specification. As the design matures, the Program Manager will ensure that life-cycle affordability is a factor in engineering and sustainment trades.