Life-Cycle Sustainment involves the early planning, development, implementation, and management of a comprehensive, affordable, effective performance-driven logistics support strategy. It plays a key role during all phases of the life cycle. The goal is to ensure sustainment considerations are integrated into all planning, implementation, management, and oversight activities associated with the acquisition, development, production, fielding, support, and disposal of a system across its life cycle. This includes: [1]

• Participating in the design process to acquire a highly supportable and sustainable system
• Providing affordable, reliable, effective support strategies and systems that meet the user’s requirements with optimum materiel availability
• Developing the appropriate metrics to validate and verify the system engineering design process, and measure the performance of the support strategy/supply chain
• Providing the user effective systems with the minimal logistics footprint (e.g., the measurable size or “presence” of logistics support, including manpower, required to deploy, sustain, and move a system).
• Developing more integrated and streamlined acquisition and statutorily compliant logistics support processes
• Facilitating iterative technology enhancements during the system life cycle

Life-Cycle Sustainment Plan (LCSP)

The Life-Cycle Sustainment Plan (LCSP) is required by DoD Instruction 5000.02 “Enclosure 6” and documents the Program Manager‘s (PM) and Product Support Manager’s (PSM) plan for formulating, implementing, and executing the sustainment strategy. The plan is included in the overall Acquisition Strategy of a program and describing the approach and resources necessary to develop and integrate sustainment requirements into the system‘s design, development, Testing & Evaluation, fielding, and operations. It also details the development of a product support package (including any support contracts) and how they contribute to the Warfighter‘s mission requirements by achieving and maintaining the Sustainment Key Performance Parameters (KPP) and Key System Attributes (KSA).

AcqLinks and References:

• [1] Defense Acquisition Guidebook (DAG)
• MIL-HDBK-502A “Product Support Analysis” – 8 Mar 2013
• DoD Product Support Manager Guidebook – April 2011
• Integrated Product Support Element Guidebook, Chapter 3 – Dec 2011

Updated: 7/14/2021

Rank: G3