PRODUCT SUPPORT
Te Acquisition Transformation Strategy emphasizes the importance of empowering managers to work with Warfghters, making program adjustments to feld systems faster.
a seamless flow of information be - tween design, manufacturing, and support teams. This integration en - sures that decisions made during the design phase are carried forward into the support phase, creating a cohe - sive and efficient life cycle manage - ment strategy. Finally, the producibility design process is not just a technical ex - ercise; it is a strategic activity that directly impacts the product’s life cycle performance. By identifying and managing these characteris - tics early, organizations can ensure that their products are safe, reliable, maintainable, and cost-effective to support. This proactive approach ul - timately leads to better product sup - port management, reduced life cycle costs, and increased readiness. More information on M&Q can be found at https://www.cto.mil/sea/mq/ and in the Warfighting Acquisition University’s online Acquisition Knowledge Matrix at https://www.dau.edu/acquisition-knowledge- matrix?field_acquisition_category_target_id= 181564&page=0 . Design for the Human The Acquisition Transformation Strategy emphasizes the importance of empowering managers to work with Warfighters, making program adjustments to field systems faster. HSI is a multidisciplinary approach that ensures that Warfighter perfor - mance considerations are integrated into system design, development, and sustainment (Figure 2). By ad - dressing Human Factors Engineering (HFE) principles, systems engineers can implement HSI to fulfill systems design activities, and liaison with HSI practitioners and the PSM to achieve product support (PS) requirements
for improved acquisition outcomes including enhanced safety, improved usability, and reduced life-cycle costs. The benefits of HSI for PSM can be achieved in the following ways: Human-centered design (HCD). Policy requires that systems will be designed with the end-user in mind, ensuring that interfaces, controls, and displays are intuitive and aligned with human capabilities and limitations. HCD ensures that operators and main - tainers can interact with the system efficiently, reducing training time, minimizing errors, and improving op - erational effectiveness and suitability. For example, designing maintenance interfaces that are easy to access and operate reduces downtime and in - creases system availability. Design interfaces. The Design In - terfaces Integrated Product Support Element (IPSE) focuses on achieving HSI goals for designing systems to minimize the potential for human er - ror through clear instructions (in con - junction with Training Support IPSE), feedback mechanisms, and fail-safe features. In addition, Warfighter us - ability management reduces human error to improve total system reliabil - ity and safety, which enhances mis - sion readiness and lowers the cost of corrective maintenance. By inte - grating HSI principles into design in - terfaces, the system becomes safer, more reliable, and easier to support throughout its life cycle. Workload management. Systems will be designed to balance cognitive, physical, and mental workload to pre - vent early onset of fatigue, human- induced errors, and inefficiencies because of the design. Proper work - load management in the IPSE areas of manpower and personnel ensures
that users can perform their tasks without being overwhelmed. Model - ing and simulation activity enables trade-off analyses that impact man - power and personnel requirements, while supporting model-based prod - uct support goals in conjunction with model-based engineering activity. And it strengthens both HSI and PSM through the digital thread. Training IPSE. Directly aligned to an HSI domain are training and train - ing support. The “training/instruc - tional system” integrates training concepts and strategies and elements of logistic support to satisfy person - nel performance levels required to operate, maintain, and support the systems. Simplified and more intui - tive interfaces reduce the complexity of training programs, enabling faster and more effective onboarding of personnel and leading to reduced total ownership cost (TOC). The PSM and HSI domain-level practitioners should collaborate on training plan - ning and training cost estimates and document them in the Life Cycle Sustainment Plan. The effectiveness of HSI in improv - ing PS outcomes can be measured through a combination of opera - tional, safety, training, maintainabil - ity, user satisfaction, life-cycle cost, and system readiness metrics. By tracking these metrics, PSMs can assess the impact of HSI on system performance, identify areas for im - provement, and ensure that the sys - tem meets its operational and sus - tainment goals. By focusing on HCD, design interfaces, workload manage - ment, and training support, HSI en - sures that systems are safe, usable, and maintainable. These principles, when executed in combination with
JANUARY FEBRUARY 2026 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE 23 –
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