A prime contractor's perspective on total ATS development and life cycle cost (LCC) support responsibility

The prime Weapon System contractor's utilization of existing Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) either in government inventory or available COTS items is truly critical to the success of any Automatic Test Systems (ATS) acquisition activity. The ATE decisionmaking process must be done in harmony with the customer (Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marines) in a total Integrated Product Team (IPT) environment in order to reduce proliferation of any unique ATE. The ATE selection process must consider cost, performance, and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) supportability/maintainability and must minimize proprietary data issues. The critical path in managing a complex ATS contract is establishing a systems engineering program/methodologies that will track, monitor the health of the program, and mitigate total program system risks to produce a quality product with customer satisfaction. The remainder of the paper addresses the program management methodology and practices necessary for a successful LCC support systems contract.