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Low rate initial production (LRIP) is a term commonly used in military weapons projects and programs to designate the phase of initial, small-quantity production. [1] The term is also applied in fields other than weapons production, most commonly in non-weapon military equipment programs.
With LRIP, the prospective first buyer and operator (i.e., a country's defense authorities and the relevant military units) can thoroughly test the weapons system over some protracted amount of time in order to gain a reasonable degree of confidence as to whether the system actually performs to the agreed-upon requirements before contracts for mass production are signed. At the same time, manufacturers can use the LRIP as a production test phase in which they develop the assembly line models that would eventually be used in mass production. Therefore, the LRIP is commonly the first step in transitioning from highly customized, hand-built prototypes to the final mass-produced end product. [1]
In practice, either the production capability or the weapons system itself can be unready during the LRIP phase. This can mean that systems produced during LRIP are built significantly differently both in terms of technique and cost owing to the immaturity of the production line or changes in the weapons system's design, necessitating a large degree of hand assembly and trial and error typically associated with the prototyping stage. Furthermore, the cost of each LRIP system can be much greater than the final mass production unit cost, since the LRIP cost can include both the R&D and setup cost for production, although the goal is for this additional cost to be spread out over future production carried out by the assembly capacity developed during LRIP.
Immaturity in a system's design or its method of production discovered during LRIP phase can result in additional LRIP phases to verify corrections and improvements, or project cancellation. The Congressional Budget Office has found that the United States Department of Defense rarely achieves projected cost savings because too many programs fail to move from LRIP to full-scale production. [2] The Japanese Ministry of Defense similarly lists R&D and initial production as "high-risk phases" in a 2008 report. [3]
The M109 is an American 155 mm turreted self-propelled howitzer, first introduced in the early 1960s to replace the M44. It has been upgraded a number of times, most recently to the M109A7. The M109 family is the most common Western indirect-fire support weapon of maneuver brigades of armored and mechanized infantry divisions. It has a crew of four: the section chief/commander, the driver, the gunner, and the ammunition handler/loader.
The Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche is an American stealth armed reconnaissance and attack helicopter designed for the United States Army. Following decades of study and development, the RAH-66 program was cancelled in 2004 before mass production began, by which point nearly US$7 billion had been spent on the program.
The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) was an amphibious assault vehicle developed by General Dynamics during the 1990s and 2000s for use by the US Marine Corps. It would have been launched at sea, from an amphibious assault ship beyond the horizon, able to transport a full marine rifle squad to shore. It would maneuver cross country with an agility and mobility equal to or greater than the M1 Abrams.
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Flyaway cost is one measure of the cost of an aircraft. It values the aircraft at its marginal cost, including only the cost of production and production tools essential for building a single unit. It excludes sunk costs such as research and development, supplementary costs such as support equipment, and future costs such as spares and maintenance.
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