1Technology Refresh A System Level Approach to Managing Obsolescence

As a result of declining defense budgets over the last decade, the Department of Defense (DoD) is faced with increasing support costs for aging military equipment. Funds to modernize our armed forces for the challenges of the 21st century are being siphoned off to meet growing maintenance costs, which continue to increase as equipment ages. The downturn in procurement of new equipment has produced a consolidation of the defense industrial base, including the lower tier suppliers. Diminishing Manufacturing Sources (DMS) is a major problem for the DoD, particularly in the area of avionics. Companies have shifted their focus to commercial markets due to the downsizing of the U.S. military, decreased supplier demand, and the emphasis on the DoD to use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts. As a result, fewer suppliers of legacy avionics components are available today, and available parts are going out of production at an accelerating pace. Traditional efforts of addressing technology refresh have been reactive in nature. Decisions on DMS/obsolescence concerns are based on schedule, procurement cost, and other short term gains. Long term effects and total ownership cost (TOC) are often left out of the decision making process. The defense industry has implemented programs and developed tools to combat these issues and manage DMS in a more systematic manner, following the DoD’s emphasis in acquisition reform. However, many approaches still rely heavily on obtaining information regarding obsolescence independently, reacting to it within the boundaries of a single organization with little cooperation across the supply chain. The Technology REfresh for Navy Transformation (TRENT) program seeks to mitigate these problems by developing a new enterprise-wide strategy for proactive technology management at the system level. The goals of the TRENT program are to improve the readiness, mission capability, and life-cycle affordability of Navy weapon systems. The components of the proactive TRENT solution include