4.3.18.22. Supportability
4.3.18.22. Supportability
Supportability refers to the inherent characteristics of the system and the enabling system elements that allow effective and efficient sustainment (including maintenance and other support functions) throughout the system’s life cycle. By addressing supportability as part of the system design, the Program Manager through the Systems Engineer and Product Support Manager ensures the system reaches Initial Operational Capability (IOC) with the required enabling system elements in place. The benefits to the program are:
- Cost savings
- Fielding of a more affordable logistics infrastructure
- Improving Materiel and Operational Availability
- Reducing footprint
Early consideration of supportability needs during Requirements Analysis, Architecture Design, and Implementation processes are critical to ensure the delivered capability is operationally suitable, effective, sustainable, and affordable. The system baseline should incorporate inherent supportability characteristics and should include the design of the enabling support infrastructure. Details can be found in DAG Chapter 5 Life-Cycle Logistics, but typical product support infrastructure considerations are listed in Table 4.3.18.22.T1.
Table 4.3.18.22.T1. Product Support Infrastructure Considerations
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Infrastructure Elements
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Typical Considerations
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Manpower and Personnel
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Specifically support personnel for installation, checkout, sustaining support and maintenance
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Training and Training Support
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For the system operators and for system maintenance personnel
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Supply Support
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Including repairable and non-repairable spares, consumables, and special supplies
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Support Equipment
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Including tools, condition and state monitoring, diagnostic and checkout, special test and calibration equipment
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Computer Resources
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Operating systems and software supporting logistics functions and associated infrastructure
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Packaging, Handling, Storage, and Transportation
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Special provisions, containers and transportation needs
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Facilities and Infrastructure
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Including facilities to support logistics and sustainment actions at all levels
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Technical Data
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Including system installation and checkout procedures; operating and maintenance instructions and records; alteration and modification instructions, etc.
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The Program Manager is responsible for approving life-cycle cost trades throughout the acquisition process. It is critical that the design of a program focused on life-cycle supportability involve the logisticians alongside the end users early in the Stakeholder Requirements Definition process to support the Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) analysis and to develop the overall performance based product support strategy. Reference DoD 4151.22-M, Conditioned Based Maintenance Plus (CBM+), an important support concept and a specific initiative, can be useful to perform maintenance based on evidence of need as provided by RCM analysis and other enabling processes and technologies.
RCM analysis is a systematic approach analyzing the functions and potential failures to identify and define preventive or scheduled maintenance tasks for an equipment end item. Tasks may be preventive, predictive, or proactive in nature. RCM results provide operational availability with an acceptable level of risk in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
Additionally, the Product Support Manager and Systems Engineer should ensure that supportability activities are documented in the Systems Engineering Plan (SEP) and the Life-Cycle Support Plan (LCSP), and that the supportability design requirements are documented in the program’s functional baseline.
The Systems Engineer working with the Product Support Manager should identify and mitigate the supportability life-cycle cost drivers to ensure a system is affordable across the life cycle. The streamlined LCSP outline calls out specific phase and milestone expectations. These expectations include determining supportability design alternatives along with their associated cost and establishing both the Operational Availability (Ao) and Materiel Availability (AM) drivers. The derived supportability requirements should be based on trade studies along with their associated cost and operational and materiel availability drivers (see DAG Chapter 5 Life-Cycle Logistics). The Cost-Benefit Analyses, jointly conducted by the Systems Engineer and Product Support Manager in the supportability analysis, provides insight into supportability drivers and includes the impact of resources on readiness supported by engineering analyses required for product support (i.e., FMECA, predictions, and diagnostics architecture).
Supportability analysis is an iterative activity conducted during the system’s development, and is used by the Program Manager and Product Support Manager to define the system’s support and document the support in the program’s LCSP. Supportability analysis begins in stakeholder requirements definition, as part of the Analysis of Alternatives (AoA), and continues through the design, test and evaluation, production and deployment activities/phases of the system. The supportability analysis and the resultant product support package mature in parallel with the maturity and evolution of the design, and should be documented in an integrated data/decision environment.
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