5.1. Life-Cycle Sustainment in the Defense Acquisition Management System
This section highlights important sustainment related activities a program manager should consider. Topics discussed in this section are applicable to multiple phases and it addresses the major deliverables to be prepared or updated during subsequent phases or increments. DoD Instruction 5000.02 provides a complete discussion of the activities and requirements encompassed in the Defense Acquisition Management System. More detailed sustainment related information can be found in subsequent sections and the references.
5.1.1. Life-Cycle Sustainment
Life-cycle sustainment involves the early planning, development, implementation, and management of a comprehensive, affordable, effective performance driven logistics support strategy. It plays a key role during all phases of the life cycle as Figure 5.1.1.F1 illustrates. The goal is to ensure sustainment considerations are integrated into all planning, implementation, management, and oversight activities associated with the acquisition, development, production, fielding, support, and disposal of a system across its life cycle. This includes:
- Participating in the design process to acquire a highly supportable and sustainable system
- Providing affordable, reliable, effective support strategies and systems that meet the user's requirements with optimum materiel availability
- Developing the appropriate metrics to validate and verify the system engineering design process, and measure the performance of the support strategy/supply chain
- Providing the user effective systems with the minimal logistics footprint (e.g., the measurable size or "presence" of logistics support, including manpower, required to deploy, sustain, and move a system).
- Developing more integrated and streamlined acquisition and statutorily compliant logistics support processes
- Facilitating iterative technology enhancements during the system life cycle
Figure 5.1.1.F1. Sustainment Thread in the Defense Acquisition Management System
The goal can be accomplished by using metrics-driven outcome-based processes to drive decisions and actions by the stakeholders across the enterprise and life cycle. It should be carried out by a cross functional team of subject matter experts ensuring sustainment requirements are both consistently and comprehensively addressed and balanced with cost, schedule and performance. Sustainment should be considered in the systems engineering process to ensure decisions focused on the ability to operate and support a system are implemented during its design, development, production, and sustainment. Key tenets in accomplishing the goal include, but are not limited to:
- Single point of accountability for accomplishing program sustainment objectives including the logistics system and support;
- Incremental acquisition and statutorily compliant product support strategies;
- Comprehensive integration of hardware, software and humans throughout the life cycle to optimize usability, availability, maintainability, sustainability and affordability. This includes follow on modifications to address deficiency reports and sustainment issues.
- Metrics-driven decisions based on a meaningful user outcome measure (e.g., Materiel Availability) supported by a materiel quality measure (e.g., Materiel Reliability), a sustainment quality measure (e.g., Mean Down Time), and a cost measure (e.g., Ownership Cost);
- Understanding industrial base capabilities and service capabilities;
- Ensuring competition, or the option of competition, at both the prime and subcontract level throughout the program life cycle;
- Performance-based life-cycle product support strategies to project and sustain the force with minimal footprint that support the Sustainment KPP, its associated KSAs, and overall affordability goals;
- Continuous process improvement including assessing the life-cycle product support strategies, to include end-to-end sustainment chain planning, assessment, and execution.
5.1.1.1. Product Support
Product Support is the application of the package of integrated product support elements and support functions necessary to sustain the readiness and operational capability of the system. While it varies by organization typically, the product support package (PSP) includes the product support elements contained in Figure 5.1.1.1.F1. They must be integrated because they impact each other and Materiel Availability. During the acquisition process the focus is on influencing the design for supportability and by fielding the support concept to satisfy user specified requirements for sustaining system performance at the lowest LCC. This applies to each increment of capability to be developed. Features include:
- Availability of support to meet Warfighter specified levels of combat and peacetime performance;
- Logistics support that sustains both short and long term readiness;
- Management of life-cycle cost (LCC) through analysis and decision prioritization;
- Maintenance concepts to integrate the product support elements and optimize readiness while drawing upon both organic and industry sources;
- Data management and configuration management that facilitates cost-effective product support throughout the system life cycle;
- A diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages management process that ensures effective, affordable, and operationally reliable systems;
- Operator and maintainer training to encompass the full capability of the system.
Developing the Product Support Strategy that defines the overall end state is the first step in achieving product support. In developing the support strategy, each program should develop an affordable strategy that:
- Positions and delivers materiel to satisfy highly variable readiness and combat sustainment needs in a variety of unique and demanding environments.
- Meets all materiel management and maintenance statutory requirements.
- Supports rapid power projection.
- Improves readiness through performance-based sustainment strategies.
- Establishes end-to-end processes focused on outcomes.
- Implements contemporary business systems and practices that enable the integration of people, information, and processes.
- Protects critical program information including as it moves through the supply chain, as required in DoD Instruction 5200.39.
Figure 5.1.1.1.F1. Product Support Elements
The support concept has to address the hardware and its associated technical data and computer software (including Commercial Off The Self (COTS) software) since software can be a major sustainment issue as systems become more software intensive. Programs need to plan for technology refreshment and maintaining the software after production. This includes how changes (for obsolescence/ technology refreshment and maintaining the software) will be budgeted and executed along with the necessary computer software documentation required to sustain the software throughout the system life. In addition to sustaining the software, aspects such as customer support, systems administration help desk support, etc. need to be considered.
Achieving the support concept and sustaining operational capability requires the involvement of the logistics, engineering, testing, program management, contracts, supply chain, and financial management experts. The overall support strategy, documented in the Life-Cycle Sustainment Plan, should include life-cycle support planning and address actions to assure sustainment and continually improve product affordability for programs in initial procurement, re-procurement, and post-production support. A performance-based product support plan will be used to align the support activities necessary to meet these objectives.
5.1.1.2. Sustainment Metrics
In a performance based environment, sustainment related requirements, with a specified range of minimum mandatory (threshold) and target (objective) performance capability design parameters are established with accompanying metrics covering the entire enterprise. This includes the system and the supply chain supporting it. (The same basic model holds for the supply chain, but this chapter focuses on the program manger's role.) Sustained materiel readiness of war fighting capability can then be achieved by developing optimally effective and affordable life-cycle costs investment strategies to achieve the sustainment metrics. The metrics should possess the following key attributes.
Traceable to User Requirements: Sustainment metrics must reflect user requirements. The metrics and their values should be derived from the systems operational requirements and expected use, (as articulated in the Capabilities-Based Assessment (CBA) process) and the product support strategy to sustain it. They should also be supported by comprehensive and early supportability planning and analyses to balance technology feasibility, life-cycle costs and operational needs.
Achievable and Verifiable: The sustainment metric requirements must be obtainable. (Unrealistic requirements adversely affect the development process, result in unachievable performance levels, and drive higher acquisition and sustainment costs.) They should also be stated in demonstrable terms reflecting the projected range of military operations (e.g., design reference missions) and intended operating environment that must be supported. These attributes are critical for sustainment requirements to be used within the design tradeoff process along with cost, schedule, and performance.
Minimum Reporting: The specific metrics should be tailored to the program and its operational and sustainment needs. At a minimum, they should consist of four interrelated metrics: an outcome metric meaningful to the user in achieving and sustaining the operating tempo; a materiel metric to measure the system's quality; a response metric to measure the quality of the logistics system; and a cost metric. They should be consistently defined within the program and traceable to the operational need. At the top level, the sustainment metrics should focus on providing an effective system that is available and reliable with minimal down time at a reasonable cost. Exact definitions and details can be found in the JCIDS Manual. However, programs have the flexibility to tailor the metrics (including adding additional sustainment metrics (e.g. footprint, manning levels) as long as the intent is met. The following describes the general intent of each of the metrics:
- Materiel Availability – the percentage of the total inventory (not just the operationally assigned assets) operationally capable at a given time based on materiel condition. This "total inventory" aspect is critical because it not only measures the ability to execute "today's" missions but also provides an indication of the "surge" ability. Materiel availability is primarily an indication of the percentage of time a system is operationally capable of performing an assigned mission. In addition to the planned missions/scenarios, operating tempo, and sustainment concept of operations (CONOPS), this metric is dependent on system reliability and the mean downtime resulting from, but not limited to failures, scheduled downtime, general maintenance or servicing actions.
- Materiel Reliability - the probability the system will perform without failure over a specific interval. This metric focuses on reliability of the entire system and should not be confused with the mission success rate. Defining the criteria for measuring relevant failures (including consistent definitions for failures (e.g., criteria for counting assets as "up" or "down") and mission critical systems) and clearly defining how time intervals will be measured are important and must be consistent with the other metrics.
- Mean Down Time - the average time an end item is unavailable to perform its assigned mission after it experiences unscheduled or scheduled maintenance actions. It includes all time where the system is not at the disposal of the Force Provider to initiate missions. In addition to the projected supply chain approach with its resultant logistics footprint, the impact of surge/deployment acceleration requirements should be determined for this and the Materiel Availability metric.
- Ownership Cost KSA - a subset of the operating and support costs, excluding manpower, training and indirect support cost. However, to address affordability it is important to use operations and support costs to influence program design, acquisition, and sustainment alternative decisions. Consequently, pending the official JCIDS Manual change, OSD is now requiring programs report the O&S costs along with the Ownership Cost KSA because the program’s cost model must be consistent with the design specifications as well as the assumptions and conditions used for Materiel Availability, Materiel Reliability and Mean Down Time metrics. In all cases it is critical the cost structure being used be clearly defined (along with the cost estimating relationships/models, and assumptions) and all relevant costs for the trade-off decisions are included regardless of funding source. (see chapter 3).
The selection of the specific performance metrics should be carefully considered and supported by an operationally-oriented analysis, taking into account technology maturity, fiscal constraints, and the timeframe the capability is required. In implementing performance-based life-cycle product support strategies, the metrics should be appropriate to the scope of product support integrators and providers responsibilities and should be revisited as necessary to ensure they are motivating the desired behaviors across the enterprise. During operations the program can consider measuring additional metrics for configuration control, training effectiveness, overall user satisfaction, etc. The specific metrics selected should tie to existing user performance measures and reporting systems. In addition, existing logistics and financial metrics should be related to these top level user performance metrics and considered as supporting metrics to help provide confidence they can be met as well as identify risk areas.
5.1.1.3. Performance-Based Life-Cycle Product Support Implementation
DoD Directive 5000.01, E1.1.17, requires program managers (PMs) to:
"develop and implement performance-based product support strategies that optimize total system availability while minimizing cost and logistics footprint. Sustainment strategies shall include the best use of public and private sector capabilities through government/industry partnering initiatives, in accordance with statutory requirements."
Building on the best features of the public and private sectors is a key component of the support strategy. The Performance-Based Life-Cycle Product Support Implementation Framework (Figure 5.1.1.3.F1) captures the range of capability solutions that could be employed. The framework is incremental, in that each alternative builds on the previous category. In all cases the system's sustainment parameters are projected and measured during the design process and then re-assessed once the system is operational so appropriate actions can be taken to achieve the Materiel Availability objective. Within each category, the program manager is responsible for working with the stakeholders to ensure the appropriate actions are taken to meet the user's needs. The difference is the amount of financial risk shared with the product support integrator or provider and sustainment aspects covered. The categories do not imply a level of "goodness" but only provide a means to illustrate the wide range of implementation options available to the program. Each category description is described below.
Category 1: In a life-cycle management environment, all programs should perform to at least this level. This is the traditional support concept where the program buys the various individual support elements. The government develops the requirements, integrates, procures, and balances the product support elements to achieve the material availability outcome. The contractor metrics are usually cost and schedule. The difference from the traditional approach is what happens once the system is operational. Once operational, the program manager measures the materiel availability and takes appropriate actions with the stakeholders to meet the user's needs. However, most of the fiscal risks are on the government side and the PM works with the product support element functional offices, government infrastructure/supply chain, and contractors to determine and ensure corrective actions are taken.
Category 2: At level 2 fiscal risks begin to transition, but only in narrow but critical supply chain functional areas. Typical functions falling within this level include providing material, inventory management, transportation, and/or maintenance where the provider is accountable for the responsiveness required to meet customer requirements. This level generally concentrates on providing parts with the government making design decisions. Part availability, mean down time (MDT) or logistics response time (LRT) are the typical metrics for Level 2 implementations where the time it takes the supplier to deliver the part, commodity or service to the user determines their payment. In using the approach, care must be given to the requirements and contract terms to ensure they drive the supplier's behavior so the government achieves an affordable material readiness outcome.
The PM is still responsible for taking the appropriate actions with the providers; however, more risks are shared because there are fewer providers with whom to coordinate. The PM still procures many of the individual product support elements and manages the system’s configuration. The program has to develop performance requirements, integrate, procure, and balance the elements not included in the Performance-Based Agreement (PBA) to achieve an affordable materiel availability outcome.
Category 3: This level expands the provider's fiscal risk level by transferring life-cycle support activities to the product support integrator (PSI), making them accountable for sustaining overall system materiel availability. Category 3 typically focuses on maintaining the required availability of key components or assemblies, such as a wing flap or auxiliary power unit, but can include the entire system. In Category 3, there is an additional PSI focus on life-cycle support, training, maintenance, repair and overhaul including logistics planning and execution, in-service engineering, configuration management and transportation. In Category 3, the PSI may also make repair or replace decisions. The preferred metric is materiel availability.
At this level the product support integrator is assigned specific life-cycle responsibility, solely or in partnership, for the breadth of processes affecting materiel availability. This includes aspects of sustainment engineering and configuration control, since reliability and maintenance of equipment and effectiveness of the supply chain influences continually affordable operational availability.
Category 4: This level transfers life-cycle support and design performance responsibilities making the product support integrator responsible for assuring operational availability (Ao) or operational capability. Typically this level applies to systems in the form of operational capability, such as "steaming hours, flying hours or miles per month"; "launches per month"; "power by the hour"; etc. The PSI is assigned responsibility, solely or in partnership, for the breadth of processes that influence Materiel Readiness. This gives the PSI the flexibility to adopt any practices and technology enablers needed to meet required performance levels, including the number of systems deployed and where they are located or staged.
Performance-Based Product Support Contracts (PBL): The DoD intent is to use performance-based support. This includes, where it provides the best long term value, using performance based contracts rather than transaction based contracts (i.e. buying Materiel Availability vice buying spares or support equipment). Any best value assessment has to consider not only cost, but also all other quantifiable and non-quantifiable factors associated with any resultant investment decision. The assessment should stand on its own and be able to withstand rigorous analysis and review by independent audit agencies. PMs should strive for the right mix of implementation in terms of functions provided and the extent to which they are applied to the system.
Contracting for performance based logistics is a multiple step process that can be applied to new, modified or legacy systems. The process is detailed on the web-based PBL Toolkit as a best practice. It is a proven process focusing on legacy programs that can be tailored and adapted to individual systems, subsystems or components to meet its needs and its business and operational environments.
Figure 5.1.1.3.F1. Performance-Based Life-Cycle Product Support Implementation Framework
5.1.1.4. Sustaining System Performance
Conditions change over the life of any system so it is critical that performance be measured against a plan and corrective steps be taken as conditions warrant. These steps can range from corrective actions anywhere within the program or its supply chain to re-baselining the metrics. Care should be taken to ensure the appropriate stakeholders are involved with any requirements change decisions and that the baseline is not changed too often to avoid rubber baselines.
Monitoring actual performance (or projected performance during design) then taking the appropriate corrective actions when needed is critical in achieving and sustaining performance. During testing, monitoring allows early corrective actions before the system is deployed. During operations, it can help the PM determine if the metrics are driving the desired behaviors (or if different metrics are needed) to achieve the desired behavior or performance. Consequently, the PM should have a strong monitoring and assessment program structured to fit the unique program conditions. Representatives from each of the functional areas that drive the metrics should be involved in the process.
The Condition Based Maintenance Plus (CBM+) is a specific initiative which can be useful in cost effectively sustaining performance. It is the application and integration of appropriate processes, technologies, and knowledge-based capabilities to improve the reliability and maintenance effectiveness of DoD systems and components. At its core, CBM+ is maintenance performed based on evidence of need provided by Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) analysis and other enabling processes and technologies. CBM+ uses a systems engineering approach to collect data, enable analysis, and support the decision-making processes for system acquisition, sustainment, and operations. CBM+ policy is established in DoD Instruction 4151.22.
The program team can often be too close to the day-to-day decisions, so independent program reviews can be useful in helping ensure the system will be able to maintain or improve performance. The DoD components each have their own structures to do this, usually tied to formal program reviews, but the PM should consider bringing in their own independent reviewers to help in the process and gain lessons learned from other programs.
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