ium frequency items. Likewise, item managers have been requested to expedite delivery on contracts for SMCC A, B, C, and D items which may prove troublesome. Finally, SMCC B and D items have been assigned to special item managers who employ selective management techniques which permit them to exercise more adequate control over lead times.

Intensity, Sensitivity

While DESC's Selective Management Code Category Program follows the basic formula of other inventory management concepts, SMCC is earmarked by its intensity and sensitivity. Through the comprehensive structure of the program, DESC today knows a great deal more about the variables of its supply business than it did just two years ago. And it is applying the ingredients for SMCC successpeople, money, and inventory— accordingly.

Whether to improve support or to circumvent a knotty problem, numerous strategies are available to item managers. But it is essential that they first know what what knobs to turn. Through SMCC, the Defense Electronics Supply Center has introduced just such a management discipline. DMJ

STEPHEN A. STROMP, JR., serves as the Assistant Public Affairs Officer at the Defense Electronics Supply Center. Mr. Stromp has worked in the public affairs office at DESC for the past 17 years.

He holds a B.A. degree from West Virginia College, an M.A. degree from the University of Dayton, and has completed one year of graduate study at Wright State University.

A Retrospective Look

While most of the aerospace industry knows

about integrated logistics support, it is a much smaller number of practitioners that realize ILS is well into its second decade. Although ILS has changed in form since its inception in 1964, the objective remains to strike an optimum balance between total system performance, cost, and schedule while developing an integrated support system. This article looks at the evolution of the ILS concept, the progress made in implementing ILS, and the challenges still to be met.

The Birth of ILS

On June 19, 1964, DoD Directive 4100.35, "Development of Integrated Logistics Support for Systems and Equipment," was issued to assure that "effective logistics support for systems and equipments is systematically planned, acquired, and managed as an integrated whole

.. to obtain maximum materiel readiness and optimum cost effectiveness." The directive was developed by the DoD Equipment Maintenance and Readiness Council, assisted by the Main

by Maj. Ned H. Criscimagna, USAF Directorate of Maintenance, Engineering & Supply ODCS for Systems and Logistics Department of the Air Force

tenance Advisory Committee of the National Security Industrial Association. This joint DoD-industry effort made the directive rather unique and demonstrated the universal concern for effective and economical support systems. Although this concern had long been voiced by logisticians, DoDD 4100.35 represented the first official move to improve the development of logistic support systems and as such was a milestone in defense system programming.

As with all new ideas, ILS was greeted with mixed emotions. DoD and the defense industry had been saturated with "integrated systems," "systems engineering," "cost effectiveness," "system effectiveness," and a seemingly endless list of new disciplines and management philosophies. There were many who felt, or hoped, that ILS would be just another buzz word that would soon be discarded. Others saw the need for such an approach to support planning, but dreaded the inevitable deluge of new regulations, reports, and associated paperwork. ILS, however, did not go out of fashion or result in an unmanageable mountain of ink and paper. It wasn't long before the song of ILS was being sung from every professional circle within the defense community.

One of the first major forums for discussing integrated logistics support was the first Elec

tronics Industries Association Conference on Systems Effectiveness in October 1965. C. W. Winkler of Douglas Aircraft presented a paper which highlighted the seven basic elements of the ILS concept (Figure 1) as defined in DoDD 4100.35. Some of the key points were:

• ILS is necessary for the development of an effective and economical support system.

For the most part, the cost of ownership of weapon systems far exceeds the development and investment costs.

The cost of ownership of weapon systems is most effectively controlled by emphasis on ILS as early in the conceptual phase of the system as possible.

• ILS represents the start-to-finish lifecycle planning of total maintenance and logistics support of weapon systems.

The next several years saw a continuing interest in and further refinements of the ILS concept. At the First Annual Logistics Management Symposium, George J. Vecchietti of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration gave a first-hand view of the contract strategy then being used or being considered for use by NASA in the logistics support area. Award-fee contracts and early, meaningful pricing of logistics support line items were the two objectives NASA was pursuing to improve logistics support management. At the Second Systems Effectiveness Conference, Ben S. Blanchard of General Dynamics told of the interrelationship of cost effectiveness, system effectiveness, and integrated logistics support. "The cost of ownership of weapon systems is most effectively controlled by emphasis on ILS as early in the conceptual phase of the system as possible."

And at the Sixth Annual Reliability and Maintainability Conference, John E. Losee addressed the development of quantitative logistics performance parameters during the conceptual and contract definition phase of Air Force pro

grams.

These men and countless others helped to better define ILS and to develop procedures and methodology for implementing the concept. In those formulative years, the defense community tried new and innovative management

techniques in order to put ILS into the development process.

The first large-scale implementation of ILS involved the B-1 and F-15 programs. The B-1 ILS office was established within the program office as a directorate coequal with the other "standard" directorates (such as engineering, test, and program control). The majority of the officers hand-picked for the ILS team had engineering degrees and experience as maintenance officers or logistics officers. Responsibilities were assigned according to a threedimensional matrix (Figure 2 shows a representative segment), with each officer given several responsibilities in three areas: logistics elements, subsystem design, and logistics tasks.

"Although ILS has changed in form since its inception in 1964, the objective remains to strike an optimum balance between total system performance, cost, and schedule while developing an integrated support system."

First regarded as just an Air Force Logistics Command liaison office, the ILSO was soon accepted as a working member of the B-1 team and was given program responsibility and authority for the acquisition of the support system. None of this could have happened, however, if the program manager had not recognized the importance of proper logistics planning and afforded ILS the same attention as was given to the other program functions. This same visibility was also afforded ILS in the F-15 program, where the ILSO had the full support of its program manager and was also manned by a select group of individuals with engineering and support backgrounds.

AFALD Established

Such efforts to put ILS into practice were repeated in many other programs, both large and small. But the ILS effort was not restricted to program-level management. AFLC was continually assessing its role in system acquisition and saw a need for more active involvement. In April 1974, AFLC established a Deputy Chief of Staff for Acquisition Logistics responsible for focusing command management

attention and resources on procedures, techniques, and activities necessary to implement fully the ILS concept. Two years later, the Chief of Staff directed the establishment of the Air Force Acquisition Logistics Division. Operating as an AFLC subcommand, AFALD has the responsibility and authority to provide strong, constructive advocacy for controlling life cycle costs, and to assist Air Force Systems Command program managers during all phases of the system acquisition process.

"The concept of making early, relatively small investments in order to realize a lower life cycle cost is central to the ILS philosophy."

Compared to the early days of ILS, AFALD represents a considerable change in the management attention and manpower resources dedicated to logistics support. Yet organizational changes have not been the only outgrowth of ILS; DoD Directive 4100.35, supplemented by DoD Guide 4100.35G, has been updated and has spawned several Air Force logistics documents, including an ILS implementation guide and a regulation dealing with acquisition of support equipment. In addition, the development of policy and procedures for related subjects, such as life cycle costs, has improved the implementation of ILS in systems programs. Today, the original 7 elements of ILS have been expanded to 11, all major programs have an ILS office, and both AFSC and AFLC continue to improve the management and application of ILS.

Despite the progress made since 1964, there still remains much to be done. Some of the early misgivings about ILS persist, and some program managers still have to be "sold" on ILS. This selling job is necessary not to overcome resistance to good support planning, but because of the current management and budgeting environment. Take, for example, the budgetary pressures put on the program manager. Asked to plan several years into the future,

he is given money one year at a time; but the exact amount is not known until the budget is approved by Congress. Months of careful planning at the program level can be negated when the upcoming fiscal-year budget is cut. This in turn may require reprogramming, de

Figure 1. Basic Elements of ILS

• Planned maintenance • Spares & repair parts

• Support equipment

Technical logistics data & information

• Contract maintenance Logistics support personnel

• Facilities

laying, reducing, or eliminating certain tasks. Deciding which tasks are to be affected is normally done on the basis of immediate need; that is, those tasks needed today, such as hardware design, are kept constant at the expense of tasks which do not have a first-hand effect on the program. Such tasks include ILS, reliability demonstration, development of technical manuals, and related "supporting" tasks. Ironically, these areas with no immediate effect on the program are the determining factors in the downstream operating and support costs.

All too often one is forced to live within today's budget at the expense of higher life cycle costs. The concept of making early, relatively small investments in order to realize a lower life cycle cost is central to the ILS philosophy. Only when ILS is implemented early and afforded a chance to impact design can the intent of ILS be met. Without this front-end investment, ILS can often do no more than develop the least-expensive support system for a patently unsupportable weapon system.

Another obstacle to selling ILS is the desire of every manager to "be certain" before making

Figure 2. Responsibility Matrix

a decision. All managers would prefer to have all the facts, eliminating all uncertainty before making a decision. A reality of life, however, is that uncertainty is always present, and we never have the time or the ability to know all the facts. We therefore must rely on analytical techniques and our own experience to minimize the effect of uncertainty, and thereby reduce the risk of a bad decision.

"Another obstacle to selling ILS is the desire of every manager to 'be certain' before making a decision.... The analytical tools developed in the area of ILS, such as logistics support analysis, optimum repair-level analysis, and various cost models, are reasonably accepted as meaningful and useful."

The analytical tools developed in the area of ILS, such as logistics support analysis, optimum repair-level analysis, and various cost models, are reasonably accepted as meaningful and useful. Still, the validity of any analysis is largely dependent on the accuracy of the data used. Herein lies the dilemma of the decision maker regarding ILS: the early phases of a program, when the ILS analysis is most effective in influ

encing design, are the times when the data is very "soft." The program manager is reluctant to implement a design change at a cost of, say, $100,000, simply because ILS analysis based on soft data indicates an LCC savings of $1 million over the present design. If the decision is delayed until the data is "dependable," change may be impractical because of the implementation cost and schedule impact. The net result is that many of these LCC-affecting changes are not made.

The problems of budget constraints and good data, however, are secondary compared to the lack of adequately manned ILS offices. This manning inadequacy consists of two types: quantity and experience. Many ILS offices do not have the recommended allotment of personnel to develop and acquire a supportable weapon system together with a complete, cost-effective support system. Except for very small programs, a smaller number of people cannot adequately define, develop, and manage an effective ILS program.

The number of ILS personnel could be kept at a minimum if all were experienced both in program management and ILS, but there is a discouragingly small number of these people and many of them move into other career areas after a few years in an ILSO. The average program therefore begins with only a few, inexperienced people to plan and manage the ILS program. With the current emphasis on austere manning and the need for career diversification (to be competitive for promotion), the people problem is not a temporary situation.

Solutions Are Not Simple

Solutions to these obstacles are more easily stated than solved, but there are some basic steps available to improve the immediate situation and eventually eliminate these obstacles. First, the ILS community must recognize and appreciate the real-world constraints placed on the program manager, who is tasked to bring in a program on schedule and within a budget which he only knows a year at a time. With minimal discretionary funds available to him, he is asked to explore alternatives and change the program plan as needed in order to minimize life cycle costs and achieve the operational requirements. He is asked to request more frontend money (he is judged, in part, by his ability