PRODUCT SUPPORT
Traditional metrics—Materiel Availability (Am) and Opera- tional Availability (Ao)—show only whether a system is up or down, but not why and how often it fails or how quickly it recovers. To close this gap, the Department of War (DoW) pro- poses introducing Materiel Resilience (MR), a new diagnostic metric defned by Mean Time Between Maintenance (MTBM), Reliability; Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), Maintainability; and Mean Logistics Delay Time (MLDT), Logistics Responsiveness.
MR captures how a system per - forms under stress and how quickly it returns to service, providing deeper insight into underlying sustainment issues than availability metrics alone. MR is part of a broader sustainment health profile built across six do - mains: reliability, maintenance ex - ecution, supply chain performance, depot throughput, cyber/workforce readiness, and life cycle/obsoles - cence factors. Tracking these with MR enables earlier detection of emerging risks, supports predictive analytics, and strengthens decision-making across the acquisition life cycle. Inte - grating MR also aligns with statutory requirements under 10 U.S.C. §118 and supports Joint Capabilities In - tegration and Development System (JCIDS) reforms emphasizing resil - ience, life-cycle performance, and data-driven capability development. The DoW is at a strategic inflection point. The JCIDS transition toward capability-focused acquisition, and the rewrite of DoDI 3110.05, Sustain - ment Health Metrics in Support of Materiel Availability, can evolve our
sustainment metrics from surface- level snapshots to multidimensional health profiles. This is more than a technical update; it is a chance to re - define how we understand, measure, and manage the health of our weapon systems in an era of unprecedented operational demands. Limits of Availability For years, the department has re - lied on two core indicators: Am and Ao. Both are calculated as: Availability = Available Time ÷ (Available Time + Down Time). These ratios are easy to compute and widely understood. They provide a quick answer to the question, “Is the system available?” But they have stopped there. They do not explain why a system is unavailable, how of - ten failures occur, or how quickly re - covery happens. They offer no insight into whether downtime is driven by chronic reliability issues, slow repair processes, or logistical bottlenecks. It is a bit like judging a patient’s health by whether they are “sick” or “not sick.” That binary view obscures the
Paratroopers assigned to 1st Battalion, 505th Para- chute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team “1 Panther,” 82nd Airborne Division, prepare for an assault at night while acting as the opposing force during Devil Avalanche, at Fort Bragg, N.C., July 24, 2025. During Devil Avalanche, paratroopers train to operate in periods of darkness, build proficiency on key weapon systems, and sustain the force throughout the exercise. Source: U.S. Army photo by Spc. Aiden O’Marra
JANUARY FEBRUARY 2026 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE 37 –
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