SD-2 Dod Acquisitions Buying Commercial Items And Nondevelopmental ItemsThis document offers guidance on acquisitions involving all types of commercial and nondevelopmental items: systems, subsystems, assemblies, parts, and items of supply. Commercial services are also addressed.This document does not present a “cookbook” approach to the acquisition of commercial and nondevelopmental items; such an approach could not accommodate the vast array of potential applications. It does offer lessons learned and things to consider when participating on an integrated product team.

Pages 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 - 38 - 39 - 40 - 41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48 - 49 - 50 - 51 - 52 - 53 - 54 - 55 - 56 - 57 - 58 - 59 - 60 - 61 - 62 - 63 - 64

In some cases, a commercial item must be used as is, even if it does not meet all requirements. A good example is a microcircuit. Commercial entities are reluctant to design microcircuits to military specifications because DoD generally buys very few of a particular design, making the cost high. In those cases, the engineer must design the end product to accommodate the short- comings of the circuits.

In other cases, the requirement can be modified or met in some other way. For example, a commercial alternative may not satisfy a particular reliability requirement such as a 300-hour mean time between failures. One option is to accept the lesser reliability level. Another is to compensate for the reliability shortfall by using other equipment or, if cost savings per unit will be sufficient, by implementing redundancy or a dispose-and-replace policy.

If performance tradeoffs are not possible, modifying the item to meet the user requirement more completely may be a viable approach. However, careful management is required to handle the ramifications of the modifications. For instance, many of the item's cost, risk, schedule, and supportability benefits may be jeopardized as a result of a modification.Therefore, before going forward with a modification, the IPT should evaluate the total effect of any modifications, par- ticularly in the area of logistics support. For example, a vendor may not recognize or support

the resulting redesigned item, and DoD may have little or no organic support capability for it.

Modification or customization of a commercial product or NDI may jeopardize its charac- teristics and lead to expensive development efforts, supportability issues, and configuration man- agement issues. Commercial services, however, are often relatively easy to adapt to meet customer needs. In fact, commercial services are often intended to be tailored to the needs of

the customer. For example, a vendors' equipment maintenance plan may offer three mainte- nance levels: minimum, typical, or high.This allows for greater flexibility when making tradeoff

decisions.

Source:  https://assist.dla.mil  --  Downloaded: 

16                                 Check  the  source  to  verify  that  this  is  the  current  version  before  use.