Integrated logistics[1] support (ILS) is a technology in the system engineering to lower a product life cycle cost and decrease demand for logistics by the maintenance system optimization to ease the product support. Although originally developed for military purposes, it is also widely used in commercial customer service organisations.[2]
In general, ILS plans and directs the identification and development of logistics support and system requirements for military systems, with the goal of creating systems that last longer and require less support, thereby reducing costs and increasing return on investments. ILS therefore addresses these aspects of supportability not only during acquisition, but also throughout the operational life cycle of the system. The impact of ILS is often measured in terms of metrics such as reliability, availability, maintainability and testability (RAMT), and sometimes System Safety (RAMS).
ILS is the integrated planning and action of a number of disciplines in concert with one another to assure system availability. The planning of each element of ILS is ideally developed in coordination with the system engineering effort and with each other. Tradeoffs may be required between elements in order to acquire a system that is: affordable (lowest life cycle cost), operable, supportable, sustainable, transportable, and environmentally sound. In some cases, a deliberate process of Logistics Support Analysis will be used to identify tasks within each logistics support element.
The most widely accepted list of ILS activities include:
Reliability engineering, maintainability engineering and maintenance (preventive, predictive and corrective) planning
Decisions are documented in a life cycle sustainment plan (LCSP), a Supportability Strategy, or (most commonly) an Integrated Logistics Support Plan (ILSP). ILS planning activities coincide with development of the system acquisition strategy, and the program will be tailored accordingly. A properly executed ILS strategy will ensure that the requirements for each of the elements of ILS are properly planned, resourced, and implemented. These actions will enable the system to achieve the operational readiness levels required by the warfighter at the time of fielding and throughout the life cycle.[3][4] ILS can be also used for civilian projects, as highlighted by the ASD/AIA ILS Guide.[5]
It is considered common practice within some industries - primarily Defence - for ILS practitioners to take a leave of absence to undertake an ILS Sabbatical; furthering their knowledge of the logistics engineering disciplines. ILS Sabbaticals are normally taken in developing nations - allowing the practitioner an insight into sustainment practices in an environment of limited materiel resources.
Adoption
ILS is a technique introduced by the US Army to ensure that the supportability of an equipment item is considered during its design and development. The technique was adopted by the UK MoD in 1993 and made compulsory for the procurement of the majority of MOD equipment.
Influence on Design. Integrated Logistic Support will provide important means to identify (as early as possible) reliability issues / problems and can initiate system or part design improvements based on reliability, maintainability, testability or system availability analysis
Design of the Support Solution for minimum cost. Ensuring that the Support Solution considers and integrates the elements considered by ILS. This is discussed fully below.
Initial Support Package. These tasks include calculation of requirements for spare parts, special tools, and documentation. Quantities required for a specified initial period are calculated, procured, and delivered to support delivery, installation in some of the cases, and operation of the equipment.
The ILS management process facilitates specification, design, development, acquisition, test, fielding, and support of systems.
Maintenance planning begins early in the acquisition process with development of the maintenance concept. It is conducted to evolve and establish requirements and tasks to be accomplished for achieving, restoring, and maintaining the operational capability for the life of the system. Maintenance planning also involves Level Of Repair Analysis (LORA) as a function of the system acquisition process. Maintenance planning will:
Define the actions and support necessary to ensure that the system attains the specified system readiness objectives with minimum Life Cycle Cost (LCC).
Set up specific criteria for repair, including Built-In Test Equipment (BITE) requirements, testability, reliability, and maintainability; support equipment requirements; automatic test equipment; and manpower skills and facility requirements.
State specific maintenance tasks, to be performed on the system.
Define actions and support required for fielding and marketing the system.
Address warranty considerations.
The maintenance concept must ensure prudent use of manpower and resources. When formulating the maintenance concept, analysis of the proposed work environment on the health and safety of maintenance personnel must be considered.
Conduct a LORA to optimize the support system, in terms of LCC, readiness objectives, design for discard, maintenance task distribution, support equipment and ATE, and manpower and personnel requirements.
Minimize the use of hazardous materials and the generation of waste.
Support and test equipment includes all equipment, mobile and fixed, that is required to perform the support functions, except that equipment which is an integral part of the system. Support equipment categories include:
Handling and Maintenance Equipment.
Tools (hand tools as well as power tools).
Metrology and measurement devices.
Calibration equipment.
Test equipment.
Automatic test equipment.
Support equipment for on- and off-equipment maintenance.
Special inspection equipment and depot maintenance plant equipment, which includes all equipment and tools required to assemble, disassemble, test, maintain, and support the production and/or depot repair of end items or components.
This also encompasses planning and acquisition of logistic support for this equipment.
Manpower and personnel
Manpower and personnel involves identification and acquisition of personnel with skills and grades required to operate and maintain a system over its lifetime. Manpower requirements are developed and personnel assignments are made to meet support demands throughout the life cycle of the system. Manpower requirements are based on related ILS elements and other considerations. Human factors engineering (HFE) or behavioral research is frequently applied to ensure a good man-machine interface. Manpower requirements are predicated on accomplishing the logistics support mission in the most efficient and economical way. This element includes requirements during the planning and decision process to optimize numbers, skills, and positions. This area considers:
Man-machine and environmental interface
Special skills
Human factors considerations during the planning and decision process
Training and training devices
Training and training devices support encompasses the processes, procedures, techniques, training devices, and equipment used to train personnel to operate and support a system. This element defines qualitative and quantitative requirements for the training of operating and support personnel throughout the life cycle of the system. It includes requirements for:
Embedded training devices, features, and components are designed and built into a specific system to provide training or assistance in the use of the system. (One example of this is the HELP files of many software programs.) The design, development, delivery, installation, and logistic support of required embedded training features, mockups, simulators, and training aids are also included.
Technical data
Technical Data and Technical Publications consists of scientific or technical information necessary to translate system requirements into discrete engineering and logistic support documentation. Technical data is used in the development of repair manuals, maintenance manuals, user manuals, and other documents that are used to operate or support the system. Technical data includes, but may not be limited to:
Computer Resources Support includes the facilities, hardware, software, documentation, manpower, and personnel needed to operate and support computer systems and the software within those systems. Computer resources include both stand-alone and embedded systems. This element is usually planned, developed, implemented, and monitored by a Computer Resources Working Group (CRWG) or Computer Resources Integrated Product Team (CR-IPT) that documents the approach and tracks progress via a Computer Resources Life-Cycle Management Plan (CRLCMP). Developers will need to ensure that planning actions and strategies contained in the ILSP and CRLCMP are complementary and that computer resources support for the operational software, and ATE software, support software, is available where and when needed.
Packaging, handling, storage, and transportation (PHS&T)
This element includes resources and procedures to ensure that all equipment and support items are preserved, packaged, packed, marked, handled, transported, and stored properly for short- and long-term requirements. It includes material-handling equipment and packaging, handling and storage requirements, and pre-positioning of material and parts. It also includes preservation and packaging level requirements and storage requirements (for example, sensitive, proprietary, and controlled items). This element includes planning and programming the details associated with movement of the system in its shipping configuration to the ultimate destination via transportation modes and networks available and authorized for use. It further encompasses establishment of critical engineering design parameters and constraints (e.g., width, length, height, component and system rating, and weight) that must be considered during system development. Customs requirements, air shipping requirements, rail shipping requirements, container considerations, special movement precautions, mobility, and transportation asset impact of the shipping mode or the contract shipper must be carefully assessed. PHS&T planning must consider:
System constraints (such as design specifications, item configuration, and safety precautions for hazardous material)
Special security requirements
Geographic and environmental restrictions
Special handling equipment and procedures
Impact on spare or repair parts storage requirements
Emerging PHS&T technologies, methods, or procedures and resource-intensive PHS&T procedures
Environmental impacts and constraints
Facilities
The Facilities logistics element is composed of a variety of planning activities, all of which are directed toward ensuring that all required permanent or semi-permanent operating and support facilities (for instance, training, field and depot maintenance, storage, operational, and testing) are available concurrently with system fielding. Planning must be comprehensive and include the need for new construction as well as modifications to existing facilities. It also includes studies to define and establish impacts on life cycle cost, funding requirements, facility locations and improvements, space requirements, environmental impacts, duration or frequency of use, safety and health standards requirements, and security restrictions. Also included are any utility requirements, for both fixed and mobile facilities, with emphasis on limiting requirements of scarce or unique resources.
Design interface
Design interface is the relationship of logistics-related design parameters of the system to its projected or actual support resource requirements. These design parameters are expressed in operational terms rather than as inherent values and specifically relate to system requirements and support costs of the system. Programs such as "design for testability" and "design for discard" must be considered during system design. The basic requirements that need to be considered as part of design interface include:
A work-breakdown structure (WBS) in project management and systems engineering is a deliverable-oriented breakdown of a project into smaller components. A work breakdown structure is a key project management element that organizes the team's work into manageable sections. The Project Management Body of Knowledge defines the work-breakdown structure as a "hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables."
In reliability engineering, the term availability has the following meanings:
Configuration management (CM) is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life. The CM process is widely used by military engineering organizations to manage changes throughout the system lifecycle of complex systems, such as weapon systems, military vehicles, and information systems. Outside the military, the CM process is also used with IT service management as defined by ITIL, and with other domain models in the civil engineering and other industrial engineering segments such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings.
A line-replaceable unit (LRU), lower line-replaceable unit (LLRU), line-replaceable component (LRC), or line-replaceable item (LRI) is a modular component of an airplane, ship or spacecraft that is designed to be replaced quickly at an operating location. The different lines (distances) are essential for logistics planning and operation. An LRU is usually a sealed unit such as a radio or other auxiliary equipment. LRUs are typically assigned logistics control numbers (LCNs) or work unit codes (WUCs) to manage logistics operations.
Materiel is supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context.
Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Reliability is closely related to availability, which is typically described as the ability of a component or system to function at a specified moment or interval of time.
A United States defense standard, often called a military standard, "MIL-STD", "MIL-SPEC", or (informally) "MilSpecs", is used to help achieve standardization objectives by the U.S. Department of Defense.
A System Design Review (SDR) is a scheduled review of many government-contractor relations, which ensures continuous involvement throughout a program. The SDR was originally defined in the Air Force's MIL-STD-1521.
Environmental stress screening (ESS) refers to the process of exposing a newly manufactured or repaired product or component to stresses such as thermal cycling and vibration in order to force latent defects to manifest themselves by permanent or catastrophic failure during the screening process. The surviving population, upon completion of screening, can be assumed to have a higher reliability than a similar unscreened population.
MIL-STD-810, U.S. Department of Defense Test Method Standard, Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests, is a United States Military Standard that emphasizes tailoring an equipment's environmental design and test limits to the conditions that it will experience throughout its service life, and establishing chamber test methods that replicate the effects of environments on the equipment rather than imitating the environments themselves. Although prepared specifically for U.S. military applications, the standard is often applied for commercial products as well.
Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) is a concept of maintenance planning to ensure that systems continue to do what their user require in their present operating context. Successful implementation of RCM will lead to increase in cost effectiveness, reliability, machine uptime, and a greater understanding of the level of risk that the organization is managing.
The Marine Corps Systems Command (MCSC) is the acquisition command of the United States Marine Corps, made up of Marines, sailors, civilians and contractors. As the only systems command in the Marine Corps, MCSC serves as Head of Contracting Authority and exercises technical authority for all Marine Corps ground weapon and information technology programs. MCSC is headquartered at Marine Corps Base Quantico.
Logistics Support Analysis (LSA) is a structured approach to increase efficiency of maintenance and reduces the cost of providing support by preplanning all aspects of Integrated Logistics Support. A successful LSA will define those support requirements that are ideal for the system design.
The Department Of the Navy Acquisition Intern Program is a civilian professional hiring program. The Naval Acquisition Career Center manages several hundred interns at any given time.
Reliability of a semiconductor device is the ability of the device to perform its intended function during the life of the device in the field.
In the United States military integrated acquisition lifecycle the Technical section has multiple acquisition "Technical Reviews". Technical reviews and audits assist the acquisition and the number and types are tailored to the acquisition. Overall guidance flows from the Defense Acquisition Guidebook chapter 4, with local details further defined by the review organizations. Typical topics examined include adequacy of program/contract metrics, proper staffing, risks, budget, and schedule.
Sierra Army Depot (SIAD) is a United States Army post and military equipment storage facility located near the unincorporated community of Herlong, California. It was built in 1942 as one of several ammunition storage facilities located far enough inland to be safe from Japanese attack, yet close enough to western military posts and ports to facilitate shipment of supplies. The site also met the requirement that the depot be in a dry and isolated area.
SX000i - International guide for the use of the S-Series of Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) specifications, is a specification developed jointly by a multinational team from the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) and Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). SX000i is part of the S-Series of ILS specifications.
S4000P - International specification for developing and continuously improving preventive maintenance is a specification developed jointly by a multinational team from the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) and Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). S4000P is part of the S-Series of ILS specifications and is integrated in the global ILS process defined by SX000i - International guide for the use of the S-Series of Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) specifications.
Human Systems Integration (HSI) is an interdisciplinary managerial and technical approach to developing and sustaining systems which focuses on the interfaces between humans and modern technical systems. The objective of HSI is to provide equal weight to human, hardware, and software elements of system design throughout systems engineering and lifecycle logistics management activities across the lifecycle of a system. The end goal of HSI is to optimize total system performance and minimize total ownership costs. The field of HSI integrates work from multiple human centered domains of study include training, manpower, personnel, human factors engineering, safety, occupational health, survivability and habitability.
References
The references below cover many relevant standards and handbooks related to Integrated logistics support.
IEEE 1332, IEEE Standard Reliability Program for the Development and Production of Electronic Systems and Equipment, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
MIL-STD-785, Reliability Program for Systems and Equipment Development and Production, U.S. Department of Defense.
↑ United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (UK MoD) Through Life Support (TLS) Directorate into the following elements and promulgated in UK Defence Standard (DEFSTAN) 00-600
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