Materiel Solution Analysis Phase Overview

Summary

This script offers an in-depth overview of the Material Solution Analysis phase in the defense acquisition process. It emphasizes the importance of selecting the most promising technology to meet user needs, establishing a program management office, and conducting a thorough analysis of alternatives. The script also highlights the collaborative efforts across various functional areas, including systems engineering, testing, software development, and lifecycle logistics, to ensure a well-informed decision at Milestone A, setting the stage for technology maturation and risk reduction in subsequent phases.

Takeaways

• 🚀 The Material Solution Analysis (MSA) is the first phase of the five phases in the defense acquisition system, aimed at selecting the most promising technology to meet user needs stated in the initial capabilities document.
• 📄 To enter the MSA phase, an approved initial capabilities document, study guidance, and a plan to conduct analysis of alternatives are required.
• 🛠️ Establishing a program manager and a program management office (PMO) is crucial for organizing the initial program documentation and strategy.
• 🤝 Interfacing with warfighters and the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) is essential for drafting the capability development document through dialogue and collaboration.
• 💰 Full funding must be established in the future years defense program during the MSA phase, keeping financial management teams busy with budget planning and execution.
• 🔍 Each functional area within acquisition has specific tasks to perform, such as staffing the PMO, analyzing program risks, overseeing the analysis of alternatives, and establishing cost goals.
• 🔄 The contracting team must onboard contractors to support the PMO, plan for studies, and prepare for the next phase by releasing draft RFPs or RFIs for industry feedback.
• 💼 Financial managers are responsible for initial cost estimates, funding requests, affordability analysis of alternatives, and managing funds execution.
• 🔧 Systems engineering plays a central role in understanding requirements, planning technical activities, analyzing technical risks, and establishing system models and simulations.
• 📊 Test and Evaluation teams must ensure requirements are measurable and testable, and integrate modeling and simulation into the test evaluation master plan.
• 🛡️ Software development should start early, with a focus on program protection planning, considering cybersecurity and evaluating software implications for each alternative.
• 🏭 Production quality and manufacturing assess the producibility of alternatives and plan the initial production strategy, while also analyzing manufacturing risks.
• 🔄 Lifecycle logistics must evaluate supportability and affordability, plan the support strategy, and conduct a business case analysis for the lifecycle sustainment plan.

Q & A

What is the primary purpose of the Material Solution Analysis phase?

The primary purpose of the Material Solution Analysis phase is to select the most promising technology that meets the user need stated in the initial capabilities document.

What is required to enter the Material Solution Analysis phase?

To enter the Material Solution Analysis phase, an approved initial capabilities document, study guidance for analysis of alternatives, and a plan to conduct the analysis are required.

What role does the Program Manager and Program Management Office (PMO) play during this phase?

The Program Manager and PMO are established during this phase to oversee the program, manage risks, and ensure the development of initial program documentation including the acquisition strategy, testing valuation master plan, and others.

How does the dialogue with warfighters contribute to the Material Solution Analysis phase?

The dialogue with warfighters helps in drafting the capability development document and ensures that the user needs are well understood and addressed throughout the phase.

Why is establishing full funding in future years defense program important during this phase?

Establishing full funding is crucial to ensure financial support for the program and to allow financial management to plan and execute the budget according to the program's needs.

What is the significance of the Analysis of Alternatives in the Material Solution Analysis phase?

The Analysis of Alternatives is significant as it helps in selecting the best technology from all available options to meet the user needs, and it is a major activity that influences the decision-making process.

What are the key responsibilities of the contracting team during the Material Solution Analysis phase?

The contracting team is responsible for onboarding contractors to support the PMO, planning for contracts related to studies and analysis of alternatives, and managing contract performance to ensure timely completion of tasks.

How does the financial management team contribute to the phase?

The financial management team contributes by establishing initial program cost estimates, analyzing affordability of alternatives, assisting in should cost analysis, and managing the execution of funds for the phase.

What is the role of systems engineering in the Material Solution Analysis phase?

Systems engineering plays a crucial role in analyzing requirements, planning technical activities for the next phase, analyzing technical risks, and establishing initial system models and simulations.

How does the test and evaluation team contribute to the phase even without hardware?

The test and evaluation team contributes by analyzing requirements for measurability and testability, establishing an initial test evaluation master plan, integrating modeling and simulation into the plan, and planning technical demonstrations and testing for the next phase.

What is the importance of early software development in the Material Solution Analysis phase?

Early software development is important for considering program protection planning, validating models for analysis of alternatives, evaluating software implications of each alternative, and understanding software-specific risks and mitigation strategies.

What are the key tasks for production quality and manufacturing during the Material Solution Analysis phase?

The key tasks include analyzing the producibility of alternatives, planning the initial production strategy, analyzing manufacturing risks, and planning mitigation strategies to support the program manager in overall risk management.

What does the life cycle logistics team focus on during the Material Solution Analysis phase?

The life cycle logistics team focuses on analyzing supportability of alternatives, planning the support strategy, developing an initial lifecycle sustainment plan, conducting a business case analysis, and analyzing sustainment risks with mitigation planning.

Outlines

00:00

🛠️ Material Solution Analysis Overview

The first paragraph introduces the Material Solution Analysis phase of the defense acquisition system. It emphasizes the importance of selecting the most promising technology to meet user needs outlined in the initial capabilities document. The phase involves obtaining an approved initial capabilities document, study guidance, and a plan for conducting analysis of alternatives. A program manager and management office are established, along with initial program documentation. Interaction with war fighters is highlighted for drafting a capability development document. Full funding for future years is also a requirement during this phase. The focus is on gathering data to make informed decisions by milestone A, leading into the next phase of technology maturation and risk reduction.

05:04

📈 Functional Area Responsibilities in Material Solution Analysis

Paragraph two delves into the specific responsibilities of various functional areas during the Material Solution Analysis phase. Program management involves staffing the Program Management Office (PMO), analyzing program risks, overseeing the analysis of alternatives, and forming a tailored acquisition strategy with cost goals. Contracting requires onboarding support contractors, planning for competitive prototyping, and managing contract performance. Financial management focuses on establishing initial program cost estimates, analyzing affordability, and managing funds execution. Technical aspects include systems engineering for understanding requirements, planning technical activities, analyzing technical risks, and establishing system models and simulations. Testing and evaluation involve analyzing requirements for measurability and testability, planning technical demonstrations, and integrating modeling and simulation. Software development considers program protection planning and software-specific risks. Production, quality, and manufacturing assess producibility and manufacturing risks, while life cycle logistics examine supportability and sustainability, including a business case analysis for the Life Cycle Sustainment Plan (LCSP).

10:04

💼 Integrating Functional Areas for Successful Acquisition

The final paragraph underscores the integration of all functional areas to ensure a successful Material Solution Analysis. It discusses the importance of a cohesive approach, where financial, technical, and logistical aspects must align to support the program's objectives. The paragraph also mentions the need for a business case analysis to ensure affordability and value for money in supportability. Sustainment risks are identified and mitigated as part of the overall risk management process. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the interconnectedness of these areas and the necessity of financial and technical support throughout the program's life cycle. It encourages the use of online resources, such as the defense acquisition guidebook, for further guidance on documentation and processes.

Keywords

💡Material Solution Analysis

Material Solution Analysis (MSA) is the first phase of the five phases of the defense acquisition system. It is the process of selecting the most promising technology to meet a user need as stated in the initial capabilities document. In the video, MSA is the central theme, with discussions on how to enter this phase, the need for an approved initial capabilities document, and the establishment of a program manager and management office.

💡Initial Capabilities Document

The Initial Capabilities Document is a crucial starting point for the Material Solution Analysis phase. It outlines the user's needs that the defense acquisition system aims to meet. In the script, it is mentioned as a prerequisite for entering the MSA phase and is used to guide the analysis of alternatives.

💡Analysis of Alternatives

Analysis of Alternatives is a significant activity within the Material Solution Analysis phase. It involves evaluating different technological options to identify the best solution for meeting user needs. The script emphasizes its importance, stating that it is 'one of the big things' executed during MSA to pick the best technology.

💡Program Manager

A Program Manager is a key individual responsible for overseeing the defense acquisition program. In the script, it is mentioned that a Program Manager and a Program Management Office (PMO) are established during the MSA phase to ensure the program's successful execution.

💡Risk Management

Risk Management is a continuous process throughout the defense acquisition framework. It involves identifying risks, planning mitigation strategies, and analyzing risks again to ensure the program's success. The script discusses the early activities of risk analysis and mitigation planning as part of the MSA phase.

💡Cost Goals

Cost Goals refer to the specific financial targets set during the MSA phase to control and reduce program costs. The script mentions establishing cost goals to identify ways to come in under the initial cost estimate, aiming to save money and provide more capability to the warfighter.

💡Systems Engineering

Systems Engineering is a problem-solving process that plays a vital role in the MSA phase. It involves analyzing requirements, planning technical activities, and establishing system models and simulations. The script highlights its importance in understanding the problem, planning for the next phase, and managing technical risks.

💡Test and Evaluation

Test and Evaluation is a critical functional area that ensures the requirements are measurable and testable. The script discusses the need for an initial Test Evaluation Master Plan, which is due at Milestone A, and the integration of modeling and simulation into testing to save costs.

💡Software Development

Software Development is an early phase activity that includes considering program protection planning and evaluating software implications of alternatives. The script mentions the need for software-specific risk analysis and the importance of cybersecurity within the program protection plan.

💡Production and Manufacturing

Production and Manufacturing involve analyzing the producibility of alternatives and planning the initial production strategy. The script discusses the importance of understanding production challenges and manufacturing risks to ensure a smooth transition to the production phase.

💡Life Cycle Logistics

Life Cycle Logistics focuses on supportability and sustainability of the program. The script mentions the need to analyze each alternative's supportability, plan the support strategy, and establish an initial Life Cycle Sustainment Plan (LSCP), including a business case analysis.

Highlights

Introduction to Material Solution Analysis as the first phase of the five phases of the defense acquisition system.

The purpose of Material Solution Analysis is to select the most promising technology to meet user needs stated in the initial capabilities document.

Entering Material Solution Analysis requires an approved initial capabilities document, study guidance, and a plan to conduct analysis of alternatives.

Establishment of a program manager and program management office during the Material Solution Analysis phase.

Development of an initial program documentation including acquisition strategy, testing valuation master plan, and others.

Interface with war fighters and the Jason system to draft a capability development document through dialogue.

Establishing full funding in future years defense program is crucial during the Material Solution Analysis phase.

Program management involves staffing the P.M.O., analyzing program risks, and planning mitigation strategies.

Overseeing the analysis of alternatives and forming a tailored acquisition strategy specific to program needs.

Setting cost goals and conducting a should cost analysis to identify cost savings and enhance warfighter capabilities.

Contracting involves onboarding support contractors, planning for next phase contracts, and managing contract performance.

Financial management includes establishing initial program cost estimates, funding, and analyzing affordability of alternatives.

Systems engineering plays a crucial role in analyzing requirements, planning technical activities, and managing technical risks.

The importance of the first systems engineering plan due at Milestone A and its approval process.

Integration of modeling and simulation into the test and evaluation masterplan to enhance efficiency and data collection.

Planning technical demonstrations and testing for the next phase, focusing on competitive prototyping.

Early initiation of software development, considering program protection planning and software-specific risks.

Production quality and manufacturing analysis to assess producibility and plan an initial production strategy.

Lifecycle logistics involves supportability analysis, planning a support strategy, and developing an initial lifecycle sustainment plan.

Conducting a business case analysis to ensure affordability and a solid business strategy for lifecycle support.

The collaborative effort of different functional areas in a program for integrated and effective defense acquisition.

Transcripts

I met Ambrose with the defense acquisition university for

the next ten minutes I'm going to give you an overview a material solution analysis

that's the first phase of the five phases of the defense acquisition system

recall the material solution analysis.

The purpose there is to pick the most promising technology

to meet a user need that stated in that initial capabilities document.

So let's dig in just a little bit to enter this phase at the material development

decision you need that approved initial capabilities document I just talked about

study guidance for your analysis of alternatives and a plan

to conduct the airway and that's kind of true of any place that we get a decision

from a milestone decision authority we need a plan for the next thing that we're

going to do in this case an analysis of alternatives is really one of the big

things that we're executing in material solution analysis because that's the point

we want to pick the best technology out of all the alternatives in order to meet

that user needs in addition to that we do establish a program manager and

a program management office and also put together an initial program

documentation clothing acquisition strategy testing valuation master plan and

the others that are listed here during this phase Also we are going to be

interfacing with the war fighters who wrote this initial capabilities document

in the Jason system to get a draft capability development document so

there's going to be a lot of dialogue back and forth to make that happen also

we need to establish full funding in future years defense program during

this phase so our financial management folks will be pretty busy now I'm going to

break this down by functional area and look at what each functional area with

an acquisition needs to do in order to make this phase successful and really what

we're pushing at here is to get all the data we need to make the right decisions

in order to come to milestone a with confidence that we can execute technology

maturation and risk reduction which is the next phase that's kind of the way.

Works in each phase we're working toward a decision a good confident decision

that we're ready for the next phase.

The program management folks have to establish staffing that P.M.O.

that's really the first thing because you're not going to get anything done

without a staff without a team really looking for a good team of experts here

from each of the functional areas that we're going to talk about because you'll

see there are some major things happening in each of those functional areas and

if you don't have someone that knows what they're doing it might be kind of

difficult to put a decent program together here at the very beginning

first We're also going to analyze our program risk and plan mitigation this is

one of the early activities that isn't going to follow us all the way through

the acquisition framework we're going to go through that cycle of risk management

where we identify the risks then we figure out how we're going to mitigate them and

then we go ahead and put that medication in place then we analyze the risks

again we're just going to keep doing that.

We also have to oversee that analysis of alternatives that's not done in

the program office but we certainly have to interface with the folks that are doing

that and make sure that we provide our input is that's happening

we have to form a tailored acquisition strategy tailored is key here what I'm

showing you is just kind of the generic process every program is different so

you have to tailor your acquisition strategy

to the particular challenges of the need that you're delivering to the warfighter.

You also need to establish your should cost goals in this particular phase

because you're expected to take the initial cost estimate for the program and

then identify specific ways to come in underneath that so that we can identify

cost savings and use those cost savings to provide more capability to the warfighter

either within our rope program or within another program possibly.

Our contracting folks have lots to do they need to get some contractors on

board to support the P.M.O. they also need to take a look at contractors for

any studies and possibly even know.

Working with the analysis of alternatives so those contracts need to be done we also

need to start planning for the next phase because it's going to be very challenging

from contracting standpoint we're not going to be able to release a request for

proposals until milestone a for the next phase however.

We can certainly release draft Our if P's or request for

information in order to get some feedback back from industry and figure out

what the best way is to go about setting up for the competitive prototyping we're

going to do in the next phase we also need to manage the contract performance of

the contracts that are put in place during this phase and make sure that we get out

of those contracts and what we're supposed to close them out in a timely manner.

Our financial managers have to fund all of this so they have to establish

the initial program cost estimates that the funding is going to be based on and

then put in the P. and R. forms that we put in to get our money we also need to

analyze the affordability of the different analysis of alternative alternatives and

assist in that should cost analysis that the program manager is doing that

certainly helps if we have some good cost estimation folks to tell us where we might

be able to save some money and and where we can be confident that our

cost estimates are good we also need to manage the funds execution whatever funds

we're using for this particular phase which tend to kind of come out of hide we

need to make sure that we are obligating in executing those according to our plan.

Let's switch gears now and talk about some of the technical aspects of the program at

the top we're going to talk about systems engineering and

how they help us get through material solution analysis and

get the data to have confidence in a good milestone a decision going forward

first of all we've got to analyze the requirements

systems engineering is a problem solving process in the first step in any problem

solving process is understanding what the problem is and that's what the recall.

It's analysis is all about we need to have a good mutual understanding between us and

the warfighter the growth requirement what that requirement really means so

that we're going to satisfy it we also need to plan the technical activities for

the next phase are we going to do that competitive prototyping how are we going

to assess it all of that comes together in a systems engineering plan so

your first systems engineering plan is due at Milestone and must be approved by them.

Also we're going to analyze the technical risks help the program manager

with the technical side of risk management and plan for mitigation

of those risks as well we want to stablish our initial system models and simulations

which will help us with both design and test and we should have some good feedback

from the testing that we actually do to provide data for these models and

make them better as we go through the program speaking of testing evaluation.

Just because we don't necessarily have hardware at this point doesn't mean that

our teeny folks don't have work to do they also need to analyze the requirements and

make sure that they're measurable and testable they need to establish an initial

test evaluation masterplan that's one of those program documents that's due

at Milestone A So you got to have your initial temp approved at Milestone a.

They're going to integrate modeling and simulation into that test and

evaluation masterplan that can really help save us money but

we've got to have the right balance of tests where we get real data that we can

then make the models and simulations better and then the models and simulations

might tell us where we can test for weaknesses and that kind of thing.

We also want to plan the technical demonstrations and

testing that we're going to do in the next phase certainly for

doing competitive prototyping in the next phase

we want to plan how we're going to tell how that's going and how we've mature

the technology kind of to do that without testing it to see how it does.

Software development needs to start early as well we need to especially consider

program protection planning that program protection plan is doing.

Stone I like some of our other program documentation we can also validate models

for the analysis of alternatives here and we can evaluate the software implications

of each of the alternatives because some things require more challenging software

approaches and some things might be easier to handle from a software standpoint so

we need to understand that within the program we also

need our software folks to take a look at software specific risks and

where we might be able to mitigate some of those.

As part of this program protection plan what we're really looking at is cyber

security more reprotect in our program from attacks

through information technology.

Production quality and manufacturing also needs to get

busy here in materials solution analysis they can look at the produce ability

of each of the alternatives and once we pick an alternative out of that analysis

of alternatives then we can take a look at what's the produce ability challenge or

risk in that particular alternative that we're taking forward and

we can also use that to plan our initial production strategy to look at materials

look at methods those kinds of things to make sure that there's nothing there

that's going to stop us when we eventually get to designing for production.

Then we need to analyze the manufacturing risks and

plan mitigation just like we do in the other functional areas to help our program

manager with the overall risk management on the program.

Last but certainly not least our life cycle logistics folks need to take

a look at supportability need to look at the each of these alternatives and

then once we choose one we can do some more detailed planning as to

what the support concept is going to look like so

we want to plan that support strategy and come up with our initial lifecycle.

Sustainment plan or L C S P.

We also want to conduct a business case analysis as part of putting that

bicycle sustainment plan together.

This takes a look at the affordability of what we're doing making sure we're really

getting what we're paying for in terms of supportability in that we've got a good

No kidding business strategy on how to go about that

we also want to analyze sustainment risks just like any other lanes and plan for

mitigation they're helping the program manager with the overall risk management

process on the program so you see how all of these different lanes in

a program work together and have to integrate in order to

make this work you can imagine none of this happens without money very little of

it is probably going to happen without some support in different areas and

in terms of the technical analysis the contracts etc All of that has to come

together with throughout the life of the program and it starts here.

So material solution analysis again kicks off.

The overall defense acquisition system.

You'll get an opportunity to see the other phases in other videos and

I do encourage you to take advantage of that also take advantage of the online

resources that we have including the defense acquisition guidebook

which provides a lot of good how to use with all of the documentation

in the processes that we use in acquisition Thanks for listening.