USAF ILA Handbook - ACC Practice Center - Defense Acquisition ...

G.6 Review the Contract.
The solicitation package or contract should be assessed for adequacy of supportability
requirements. The solicitation package for the next acquisition phase, if available, should also
be reviewed to ensure that it is adequate to meet the requirements of the LCMP or other
program documentation. This is critical for ensuring that planning is complete. For instance,
the sustainment elements assessed previously may show that a particular metric may need to
be complete by Milestone C. During the ILA for entrance into Phase B, the solicitation
package should be assessed to ensure that planning and requirements to meet those metrics are
in place. The questions in Table D-5, Contract Logistics Considerations of Appendix D, will
provide the ILA team with more detailed guidance when reviewing the weapons system
contract for logistics considerations.
G.7 Assess the Integrated Master Plan (IMP)/Schedule (IMS).
One way of defining tasks and activities is the use of an IMP and IMS, which provides an
overarching framework against which all work is accomplished. PMs should use event-driven
schedules and the participation of all stakeholders to ensure that all tasks are accomplished in a
rational and logical order. These tools facilitate communication and help to manage expectations
among stakeholders. The PM should also ensure that necessary input conditions to complete each
major task are identified, and no major task should be declared complete until all required input
conditions and component tasks have been satisfied. ILA teams should assess the reasonableness
of the tasks and likelihood of completion of each product support and sustainment task within the
allocated schedule and available man-loading. Overly optimistic, success-oriented schedules that
do not reflect realistic conditions may mask eventual program cost growth, schedule delays or
perhaps failure. Project management charting tools are commonly used to schedule and organize
program tasks, graphically showing their schedule and dependencies.
G.7.1 The IMP provides an overarching framework against which all work is
accomplished. It documents all the tasks required to deliver a high-quality product and
facilitate success throughout the product's life cycle. The IMP also serves to identify
dependencies which may be performed by different organizations. The IMS helps the PM
understand the links and inter-relationships among the various teams and identify critical
risk areas. Critical path analysis should be used to help identify which tasks, or sets of
tasks, will be more difficult or costly to complete. The sequence and dependencies of one
task upon another must be included in determining schedule realism. The IMS timelines
must be achievable within funding constraints when considering all required detailed
tasks and their interdependencies.
G.7.2 The effectiveness of a program’s product support strategy must be reviewed in
context of the overall program schedule and the design/development milestones. The
tasks for each sustainment element must be planned, scheduled and integrated with other
program activities. The IMS must also factor in these schedule requirements for each
sustainment element, based on a bottom-up task analysis. To minimize program risks, the
detailed logistics support tasks developed and integrated into the overall IMS must be
realistically achievable, considering the sequence of all dependent and interconnected
tasks. Assessors should review critical paths to identify logistics tasks including their
actual start/end dates and to review progress and timeliness of each task against its
schedule. Schedules, for example, should reflect tasks such as Built-in Test
(BIT)/testability design; maintainability analyses/verifications, Failure Modes, Effects
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Air Force Independent Logistics Assessment Handbook