Product Support Manager Guidebook

Experienced leaders recognize that logistics is the key to success in any military strategy or campaign. Historically, logistics has focused on how to efficiently and effectively deliver our war fighting capability at acceptable readiness levels. Total life cycle weapon system product support became the focus of program managers and logisticians. Numerous initiatives were introduced in the late 1990s to streamline the way Department of Defense DoD acquires and supports weapon systems. One of these, Performance Based Logistics PBL, fundamentally changed the way we structured logistics support. It directly tied the delivery and support of products and services to Warfighter product support outcomes to enable Warfighter effectiveness. Performance based strategies have continued to evolve since that time. In an era of shrinking budgets and increasing costs, support solutions must balance Warfighter outcomes with the cost of delivery. This guidebook will assist the Product Support Manager PSM in determining the mix of capabilities and providers that best fulfills the Warfighter s performance and cost requirements. This guide is a tool for Program Managers PMs, Product Support Managers PSMs, and their support staff as they develop and implement product support strategies for new programs, major modifications to legacy programs, or as they re-validate and re-engineer product support strategies for existing fielded systems. This guide is focused on identifying, developing, implementing, incentivizing, and measuring quantifiable best value outcome based product support strategies that optimize life cycle costs and readiness. It delineates processes for outcome goals of systems, ensures that responsibilities are assigned, provides incentives for attaining these goals, and facilitates the overall life cycle management of system reliability, availability, supportability, and life cycle costs.