MIL-HDBK-502 - Barringer and Associates, Inc.

MIL-HDBK-502: ACQUISITIONALOGISTICSa. Maintenance Planning. It is important that maintenance planning tasksbe defined in measurable terms, with threshold percentages or rangesprovided. The repair strategy must be clearly envisioned before the ORD iswritten. The cost/benefit ratio between organic repair and contractorsupport must be scrutinized before any decisions are made. Contractorsupport costs must include estimates for increased cost, and DoD incurredcosts for life support, security, and transportation in a forward deployed(hostile) environment. This is not an area where preconceived notions ofwhat is appropriate (or what works) can be allowed to dominate.b. Support Equipment. In this section “realistic and affordable” are keyphrases. “One hundred percent fault isolation” is certainly desirable, but isit realistic? And even if it were, would it be practical, from a financialviewpoint? Common support equipment should be acquired instead ofpeculiar support equipment when possible and cost effective.c. Human Systems Integration. Manpower issues are crucial to thesupportability of many systems. Acceptable risk levels, necessary traininglevels, manpower ratios, and the like must be addressed as supportabilityconcerns. Initial and continuing training to maintain operator skills is animportant consideration. Given the high level of turnover in militarypersonnel, maintaining operator skill is often a crucial issue. Repair andmaintenance personnel also turn over rapidly. Support planning must dealwith these issues.d. Computer Resources. This is another area where logisticians needs tohave done their homework. What constraints are necessary in order toprovide interfaces with other services? What is the tradeoff when Xarchitecture provides a desirable improvement in operational availabilitybut denies access to Y communications network used by another service?The logistician must assess the impact of system changes and determinenecessary adjustments to the logistics structure.e. Other Logistics Considerations. Provisioning strategies and specialpackaging, handling, and transportation considerations need to beaddressed here. Unique data requirements are defined here, but rememberthat data requirements should be kept to a minimum, and data should beprovided in contractor format whenever possible. Logisticians must knowhow and when they will use the data they request, and they must be able todistinguish between “nice to have to cover possible contingencies” data andessential data. Packaging, handling, transportation, facilities, disposal, andenvironmental impact considerations are far from the forefront for systemdesigners, developers, and users, but they are important and potentiallyexpensive considerations. Logisticians must understand the potentialimpact of these issues on the system from its inception, and must raisethese issues whenever they impact on program planning.6-3