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.

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Reliability

Reliability, with its impact on operation and support costs, must receive critical attention in the acquisition process. For commercial items and NDIs, the reliability assessment should be an op- erational assessment of the military application in the expected military environments.

Because the basic design of a commercial item or NDI cannot be controlled by the buyer, the objective of the test and evaluation program is to determine whether the item meets the reliability requirements identified by the customer.The following are examples of the types of data needed by the IPT to assess an item's reliability:

•  Supplier's overall reliability design program

•  Mean time between failures

•  Built-in test capabilities

•  Current and planned mission environment

•  Extent to which the supplier's reliability design program includes

e  thermal analysis;

e  failure modes, effects, and criticality analysis;

e  environmental stress screening;

e  reliability allocations and predictions;

e  shock and vibration analysis;

e  parts selection and qualification program, including incoming inspection of critical parts; and

e  system and subsystem reliability testing.

Not all commercial products will have accumulated the required reliability data or the exten- sive testing required for military qualification. However, some items will have substantial market- generated performance data that may be more extensive than the data generated through military testing programs or experimental use.

If reliability cannot be adequately assessed with the existing data, the IPT should consider obtaining some typical products from the market for hands-on evaluation. Reliability can also be made a factor in source selection, which is consistent with commercial practices.

The amount of testing required to verify that a commercial item or NDI meets the operational requirement for reliability is governed by whether the item will be used in the environment for which it was designed and by operators with skills equal to the operators for which it was de-

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