In the scheme of things, a system’s total life cycle
management planning for sustainment as a post-production to retirement activity
is a normal part of the cradle to grave design and fielding package(s). It involves ensuring there is, for example,
adequate depot maintenance, sufficient spare inventory, technical service
supervision and, often, a sufficiency of private sector repair and overall
facilities until a system’s predicated retired. Unfortunately, technological
and financial challenges surface within the DoD community when the useful life
of systems is extended far beyond their date of planned obsolesces. Further
complicating the issue is the fact that legacy systems remain in needed use
during an era when the technological change cycle, in many instances, is 12
months or less and when the battle space has taken on asymmetrical cyber
warfare characteristics.
The issue of aging systems is a major challenge for a number
of reasons. It is, in most cases, not
in the financial interest of industry to maintain obsolete systems and related inventory
of spares for a diminishing number of items with questionable longevity. For industry to do so would place them at a
competitive disadvantage at a time when the evolution of technology is becoming
increasingly sophisticated, of shorter duration and more complex with each
iteration.
New system and component technology is often more reliable, smaller,
lighter in design and operates more efficiently than systems and components
they are to replace. Therefore from a financial perspective, manufacturers will
invest their time and resources in designing and building systems with advanced
technologies for expanding sales opportunities rather than on supporting legacy
systems that can, at anytime, be eliminated with the swipe of a Congressional
pen. In addition, legacy systems and
components may not play nicely with advanced replacement technologies. For legacy systems that have not been designed
for the insertion and use of advance technologies (i.e. not having a common
backplane) often experience interface and interoperability issues and have
proven to be a major readiness challenge for the DoD community.
There are other
issues associated with the rapid turnover of
technology that continue to challenge the DoD community. The public marketplace expectations for
innovative technologies, especially in software, often means that by the time a
product reaches the end of its initial production run it is obsolete. Therefore,
since the lifecycle use of the product is relatively short, industry has
little, if any, incentive to invest in long-term product reliability. The burning question: why design in systems
with long-term reliability and availability when a systems’ and/or equipments’
useful life will only be one
production run? In short, it is
not in the competitive financial interest of corporate America.
Unlike the public sector that has the resources and
flexibility to purchase products as they role off the production line, DoD
strategic, economic, and mission requirements prevent investing in and
purchasing advanced technology repeatedly on a short time schedule. The DoD acquisition process has a series of
reviews and safeguards tied to Congressional mandates that usually cause the
purchase of systems/equipment to be deliberately slow. Equally important is the fact that the DoD is
much larger and more complex than any one single corporate entity within the
private sector. It is responsible for
the training and equipping hundreds, if not thousands of troops, deployed worldwide in the use of new technologies. Introducing new replacement equipment into
the Services every year or two would create
a logistics and training nightmare that would potentially leave very few funds
available to DoD for other defense priorities.
Twenty first century battlespace complexity and variation
requires a mixed use of systems containing innovative technologies along with
legacy systems. Laser and acoustic weapon
systems, for example, often are required to reside in the same space and time
as the fifty-caliber machine gun. In
addition, the battle space terrain keeps shifting. It can simply be confined to
a remote village in Africa under terrorist occupation or can include
nation-state and asymmetrical challenges from land to sea, to air, to space to
cyber, from urban to desert environments, to a dense jungle environment or a
combination of all.
As current worldwide urban conflicts have demonstrated, conventional
urban warfare frequently requires “boots on the ground” in close combat
situations. The use
of conventional legacy systems tends to remain the weapon systems in use under this condition. Rifles, tanks, mortars, grenades can seldom
be substituted with drones, tactical nuclear weapons, laser guided missions,
computer-cyber programs and other similar advanced technologies for many regional
conflicts that are challenging the national security of the U.S. Certainly advanced technologies can and do
play a much needed support role within the conventional battle space however, it is
conventional systems, many which are legacy, in the hands of seasoned troops
that win and hold territory. This
scenario creates a huge sustainment challenge for the DoD. Under such
unpredictable circumstances the end cost(s) of the logistic complexity and
sustainability of legacy systems is potentially damaging to our national
defense and economy.
Many of the legacy systems, by definition, continue to be
used far beyond their designed intended useful life. The older these systems, the less reliable they become (they
break down often), parts become scarce, the more costly it becomes for maintenance
facilities, equipment repair and maintenance personnel, and from a War fighter
perspective, the less confidence they have that the legacy systems will keep
them out of harms way. The sustainment of
obsolete systems can be costly in many ways, to include using taxpayer
resources that can be put to
better use in defense of our county.
The time has come for DoD to develop and implement a
comprehensive life cycle sustainment policy that addresses such matters as cost
and part obsolesces for both legacy systems and newer systems that eventually
will pass beyond their intended design life.
Essential legacy systems and critical parts have to be identified and
supported until there is an established, well-planned date for their replacement. Contracts for new systems need to include
robust provisions for sustainment. DoD needs to do a better job in anticipating
what legacy and new systems will be needed in the present and future battle
space and firm, insightful cost sustainment metrics have to be developed so
that provisions for a long-term, life cycle sustainment budget can be
established. To do otherwise, makes the
sustainment of legacy systems cost prohibitive, impedes their replacement and
consumes DoD limited resources that are needed to be used in other ways to
confront the global defense challenges of this century.
