Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD) is the DoD management technique that simultaneously integrates all essential acquisition activities through the use of Integrated Product Teams (IPT) to optimize design, manufacturing, and supportability processes. IPPD facilitates meeting cost and performance objectives from product concept through production, including field support. It evolved in industry as an outgrowth of efforts such as Concurrent Engineering to improve customer satisfaction and competitiveness in a global economy. [1]
Definition: “A management technique that integrates all acquisition activities starting with requirements definition through production, fielding/deployment and operational support in order to optimize the design, manufacturing, business and supportability processes.” IPPD Guide
Guide: DoD Guide to Integrated Product and Process Development – 5 Feb 1996
Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD) Tenets
The ten (10) tenets of IPPD can be summarized into the following five (5) principles: [1]
- Customer Focus: It’s accomplished by including the customer in decision-making and on multidisciplinary teams. Conducting tradeoff studies during the requirements definition and development processes also ensures that the design remains consistent with customer needs. The specific tradeoff analysis process that is focused on reducing and controlling life-cycle cost, while meeting the customer needs, is called Cost as an Independent Variable (CAIV).
- Concurrent Development of Products and Processes: It refers to the simultaneous development of the deliverable product and all of the processes necessary to make the product (development processes) and to make that product work (deliverable processes). These processes can significantly influence both the acquisition and life-cycle cost of the product.
- Early and Continuous Life-Cycle Planning: It’s accomplished by having stakeholders, representing all aspects of a product’s life-cycle, as part of the IPT. Early life-cycle planning with customers, functional representatives, and suppliers lay a solid foundation for the various phases of a product and its processes. Key program activities and events should be defined so that progress toward the achievement of cost-effective targets can be tracked, resources can be applied, and the impact of problems, resource constraints, and requirements changes can be better understood and managed. Early emphasis on life-cycle planning ensures the delivery of a system that will be functional, affordable, and supportable throughout a product’s life cycle.
- Proactive Identification and Management of Risk: It’s accomplished in many ways in the IPPD environment. By using the IPT teamwork approach, designers, manufacturers, testers, and customers work together to ensure that the product satisfies customer needs. DoD endorses a risk management concept that is forward-looking, structured, informative, and continuous. The key to successful risk management is early planning and aggressive execution. IPPD is key to an organized, comprehensive, and iterative approach for identifying and analyzing cost, technical, and schedule risks and instituting risk-handling options to control critical risk areas. IPTs develop technical and business performance measurement plans with appropriate metrics to monitor the effectiveness and degree of anticipated and actual achievement of technical and business parameters.
- Maximum Flexibility for Optimization and Use of Contractor Approaches: IPPD is a management approach, not a specific set of steps to be followed. The Government acquisition community recognizes that it must allow contractors the flexibility to use innovative, streamlined best practices when applicable throughout the program.
AcqLinks and References:
- Defense Acquisition Guidebook (DAG)
- [1] DoD Integrated Product and Process Development Handbook – Aug 98
- DoD Guide to Integrated Product and Process Development – 5 Feb 1996
Updated: 7/7/2021
Rank: G1
