Integrated Logistics Support / Integrated Product Support

Elements of Integrated Product Support

The twelve (12) elements of IPS are segregated into three (3) categories with four (4) elements in each, as follows:

Category 1 - Life Cycle Sustainment Management

• 1 Product Support Management - development and implementation of support strategies to ensure product supportability is considered throughout its life cycle; accomplished by balancing the performance outcomes of reliability, availability, maintainability, and reduced total ownership costs.
• 2 Supply Support - actions, procedures and techniques necessary to acquire, catalog, receive, store, transfer, issue and dispose of spares, repair parts, and supplies; includes provisioning for initial support, as well as acquiring, distributing, and replenishing inventories.
• 3 Packaging, Handling, Storage, & Transportation - the combination of resources, processes, procedures, design, considerations, and methods to ensure that all system, equipment, and support items are preserved, packaged, handled, and transported properly, including environmental considerations, equipment preservation for the short and long storage, and transportability.
• 4 Maintenance Planning & Management - developing, implementing and managing the maintenance requirements, concept, and detailed procedures for a system; includes personnel who performs the required maintenance tasks and location where tasks will be accomplished; also includes identifying all the resources and funding needed to develop and implement the maintenance plan.

Category 2 - Technical Management

• 1 Design Interface - integration of the quantitative design characteristics of systems engineering (reliability, maintainability, etc.) with the functional logistics/integrated product support elements, reflecting the driving relationship of system design parameters to product support resource requirements; design parameters are expressed in operational terms rather than as inherent values and specifically relate to system requirements; thus, product support requirements are derived to ensure the system meets its availability goals and design costs, and that support costs are effectively balanced.
• 2 Sustaining Engineering - identification, review, assessment, and resolution of deficiencies throughout a system's life cycle; returns a system to its baselined configuration and capability, and identifies opportunities for performance and capability enhancement; includes the measurement, identification and verification of system technical and supportability deficiencies, associated root cause analyses, evaluation of the potential for deficiency correction, and the development of a range of corrective action options.
• 3 Technical Data - recorded information of a scientific or technical nature regardless of form or character necessary to acquire, operate or support the system; consists of equipment technical manuals, engineering drawings, engineering data, specifications, standards and Data Item Descriptions (DID); may also include product, financial and program management data.
• 4 Computer Resources - information technology resources and infrastructure required to operate and support mission critical systems to include manpower, personnel, hardware, software, and documentation such as licenses and services.

Category 3 - Infrastructure Management

• 1 Facilities & Infrastructure - the permanent and semi-permanent real property assets and infrastructure required to support a system; includes studies to define types of facilities and infrastructure, facility and infrastructure improvements, location, space needs, environmental and security requirements, and equipment; also includes facilities and infrastructure for training, equipment storage, maintenance, supply storage, etc.
• 2 Manpower & Personnel - identification and acquisition of personnel (military and civilian) with the skills and grades required to operate, maintain and support systems over their lifetime.
• 3 Support Equipment - equipment (mobile or fixed) that is not inherently part of the primary system but is required to support the operation and maintenance of the system; includes but is not limited to associated multiuse end items, ground handling and maintenance equipment, tools metrology and calibration equipment, manual/automatic test equipment; also includes the support for the support equipment itself.
• 4 Training & Training Support - policy, processes, procedures, techniques, Training Aids Devices, Simulators and Simulations (TADSS), planning and provisioning for the training including equipment used to train civilian and military personnel to acquire, operate, maintain, and support a system; includes New Equipment Training (NET), institutional, sustainment training and Displaced Equipment Training (DET) for the individual, crew, unit, collective, and maintenance through initial, formal, informal, on the job training (OJT), and sustainment proficiency training.