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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interface and performance characteristics but have little or no insight into the internal composition of a product.This lack of insight may greatly complicate the process of iden- tifying suitable replacement items when a DMSMS situation arises.

•  Configuration and content variation. While developing and producing commercial items, manufacturers face constantly changing prices and availability of components such as microchips, diodes, resistors, capacitors, disk drives, memory devices, and displays.As a result, different production lots can be functionally equivalent but contain different com- ponents and subassemblies.The product manufacturer may or may not identify these con- figuration changes.

•  Inventory costs. It is not in a manufacturer's best interests to warehouse quantities of an existing product (or repair parts) when the product will soon be replaced by a next- generation product.To avoid both costly warehousing expenses and unmarketable excess inventory, a manufacturer will minimize its aging stock, thereby limiting product avail- ability.

•  End of production. When a commercial item will soon go out of production, the effects of the end of production must be examined and understood at both the product and system levels to determine what actions if any are needed.

•  End of support. As new commercial items are introduced into the market, manufacturers must determine when to stop supporting the older products.To avoid alienating the cus- tomer base using the older product, a manufacturer may support the product even if doing so is not profitable. However, at some point, support by the original equipment manufac- turer (OEM) will end. (Third-party sources may be available to provide support services.)

Risk Mitigation Strategies

Solving DMSMS problems is complex, data intensive, and expensive.The best way to mitigate the risks of DMSMS is to design systems that enable frequent technology upgrades or refresh- ments through the insertion of newer items as they become available. For example, systems should be designed with standard interfaces and plug-and-play modules.

Risk mitigation does not stop when the design phase is completed. Rather, it must continue throughout the system's life cycle.The following are among the risk mitigation strategies often used by IPTs:

•  Involve individuals who understand the interrelationships among commercial market forces, market research, technology trends, commercial standards, commercial product risks, and risk mitigation strategies.

•  Involve users early and throughout the program life cycle to identify and resolve con- straints related to commercial items. Early end-user involvement helps to ensure that