Rapid Fire June 11, 2012: Product Support Manager Conference Proceedings

Presentations from the US DoD’s 2nd Product Support Manager (PSM) conference that took place last week can be found here (the 1st conference explained what a PSM is). A few highlights [PDF documents]: * Nick Guertin, Director for Transformation RDT&E in the Navy, wants the government to “assert and exercise” its intellectual property rights, break vendor lock-in and increase transparency: Competition and the DoD marketplace. Guertin has been working on Naval Open Architecture for years. * Partnering and Industrial Integration covers several contract vehicles from a contractor’s perspective, including one that may make it into the forthcoming NDAA: Enterprise Performance Based Logistics Contracts (ePBL), Enterprise Public Private Partnerships (ePPP), and Product Improvement Pilot Program (PIP2). The DLA also chimed in on performance-based logistics. * An annotated outline of the Life-Cycle Sustainment Plan (LCSP) explains how this document should evolve over the life of a program to explain at what level of performance and cost its sustainment should be, and the means to get there. * Rapid acquisition comes with risks and challenges. In other news: * Eurosatory Day 1 link wrap-up. * Nexter CEO Philippe Burtin thinks [in French] that another wave of consolidation among European defense manufacturers is coming. […]