Downloaded from https://www.everyspec.com MIL-HDBK-502: A MIL-HDBK-502: A CQUISITION CQUISITION L OGISTICS OGISTICS readiness, supportability, and cost. If the hardware design is fixed, as it would largely be in a commercial or NDI acquisition, these early analyses might seem to have little benefit. In the case of product improvement programs, the scope of proposed improvements might limit design flexibility to specific subsystems and may or may not open non-affected areas of the design to redesign opportunities that would address changes to reduce the anticipated support burdens. Flexibility may exist for the design of the support system but not in the hardware system.
Commercial items for which maintenance support plans have not been developed are typical examples of this situation. Integrating supportability requirements into system and equipment design requires that designers be oriented toward supportability objectives from the outset. Technical information generated during the design process must be disseminated among designers and members of the supportability disciplines to surface interface problems.
Technical design information— diagnostic features, electromechanical interfaces, reliability estimates, item functions, adjustment requirements, and connector and pin assignments— that determines supportability should be an integral part of design documentation. When design flexibility exists, the performing activity's plan should describe the generation, control, and approval of this type of design documentation . 4.2.4 Available Resources Supportability analyses require time and resources. It is pointless to impose supportability requirements that depend upon an analysis whose results may not be available in time to contribute to the design decisions which they are intended to affect.
The exception to this rule would be a situation where the potential improvement can be included as part of future pre- planned product improvements such as technology insertion programs. It is DoD policy to fund readiness and support considerations in the front end of programs. Nevertheless, resources are constrained in practice. If program funds are short, it may be possible to perform some activities, such as the requirements definition activities, with in-house capabilities. If the in-house capability is limited but funds are available, such analyses might also be accomplished by "program support" contractors with the required expertise.
Another approach is to capitalize on the interrelationships between the analyses. For example, an analysis of an existing system feeds the identification of supportability drivers of a new system. These, in turn, feed the selection of targets for supportability improvement in the new system. If, for some reason, only one of these activities could be afforded, then the identification of targets for improvement would be the logical pick of the two. The process of target identification will obviously lose precision since 4-8