PRODUCT SUPPORT
Readiness BY DESIGN by COL. R. CHRIS DELUCA, USA (RET.)
Come what may, U.S. forces will fght from the frst day of battle and throughout their mission with whatever equipment is available to them. But ensuring availability of the right equipment on time is critical to battlefeld readiness and to victory. As Sun Tzu wrote in Te Art of War : “All wars are won or lost before they are ever fought.”
In accordance with the Acquisition Transformation Strategy, Life Cycle Logistics, together with Engineering and Technical Management (ETM), will deliver battlefield readiness with “rapid and mission-focused execu - tion” while taking “calculated and shared risks.” Several specialty engineering dis - ciplines create availability through their design activities, especially by focusing on identifying system fea - tures and anticipating issues as early as possible in the system life cycle. Members of the warfighting acquisi - tion workforce, including life cycle lo - gisticians, product support managers (PSMs), and ETM specialists, collab - orate with Warfighters and industry partners to influence system archi -
tecture, design, and manufacturing to help field equipment with “speed, flexibility, and rigorous execution” per the Acquisition Transformation Strategy, and maintain its availabil - ity for a ready and lethal force. Five specialty engineering ar - eas have developed methods and activities to promote readiness by design: Reliability and Maintainabil - ity (R&M), Manufacturing and Qual - ity (M&Q), Human Systems Integra - tion (HSI), System Safety, and Value Engineering (VE). These disciplines influence war- fighting outcomes from product concept through operation, support - ing continuous battlefield readiness. They require input from the PSMs to balance risks with speed of execu -
tion, delivering effective and suit - able products available for war in collaboration with them and other life cycle logisticians. Design for R&M Achieving mission readiness is a continuous effort. R&M engineering provides the foundational strategy for this challenge alongside the PSM. By prioritizing R&M from a system’s ear - liest design stages, the program lays the groundwork for a more efficient, cost-effective, and operationally ready asset throughout the system’s entire life cycle (Figure 1). The path to long-term support - ability begins with upfront planning. During the initial design phase, the R&M engineer, the PSM, and the cost
20 DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE | JANUARY FEBRUARY 2026 –
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