Condition Based Maintenance Plus CBM+ is the application and integration of appropriate processes, technologies, and knowledge-based capabilities to improve the reliability and maintenance effectiveness of DoD systems and components
.
At its core, CBM+ is maintenance performed based on evidence of need provided by Reliability Centered Maintenance RCM analysis and other enabling processes and technologies.
CBM+ uses a systems engineering approach to collect data, enable analysis, and support the decision-making processes for system acquisition, sustainment, and operations.
DoD has identified warfighter expectations and made an effort to conduct support operations in a more effective as well as fiscally responsible manner. Under the umbrella of Total Life Cycle System Management TLCSM, the sustainment of a weapon system receives increased attention from Service leadership and program managers.
TLCSM establishes clear responsibilities and accountability for meeting warfighter expectations. It sets goals, tracks progress and status, and balances resources to accomplish desired material readiness.
CBM+, in concert with the other TLCSM tools, Continuous Process Improvement CPI, cause-and-effect predictive modeling and simulation M&S, and desired outcomes achieved through Performance Based Logistics PBL, will enhance materiel readiness.
CBM is an established approach to identifying and scheduling maintenance tasks. It employs continuous or periodic assessment of weapon system condition using sensors or external tests and measurements through first-hand observation or portable equipment.
The goal of CBM is to perform maintenance only when there is evidence of need. Integrating the enabling CBM+ capabilities builds upon the foundation of CBM. CBM+ continues to evolve from this original concept into the maintenance improvement strategy.
CBM+ includes a conscious effort to shift equipment maintenance from an unscheduled, reactive approach at the time of failure to a more proactive and predictive approach that is driven by condition sensing and integrated, analysis-based decisions.
CBM+ focuses on inserting technologies that improve maintenance capabilities and processes into both new and legacy weapon systems and integrates the support elements to enable enhanced maintenance-centric logistics system responses.
With more accurate predictions of impending failures based on real-time condition data, coupled with more timely and effective repairs, moving toward CBM+ will result in dramatic savings—in time and money—and improved weapon system availability and performance.
CBM+ uses modern maintenance tools, technologies, and processes to detect the early indications of a fault or impending failure to allow time for maintenance and supply channels to react and minimize the impact on system operational readiness and life-cycle costs.
CBM+ provides a means of optimizing the approach to maintenance, and is a vehicle to reduce scheduled maintenance requirements. The flexibility and optimization of maintenance tasks with CBM+ also reduces requirements for maintenance manpower, facilities, equipment, and other maintenance resources.
CBM+ is not a single process in itself. It is a comprehensive strategy to select, integrate, and focus a number of process improvement capabilities, thereby enabling maintenance managers and their customers to attain the desired levels of system and equipment readiness in the most cost-effective manner across the total life cycle of the weapon system.
CBM+ includes a variety of interrelated and independent capabilities and initiatives—some procedural and some technical— that can enhance basic maintenance tasks. At its core, CBM+ is maintenance performed upon evidence of need provided by RCM analysis and other enabling processes and technologies
To satisfy the requirements of a changing Defense Strategy, maintenance managers are challenged to apply CPI concepts and tools to improve maintenance agility and responsiveness. The goal is to increase operational availability and readiness and to reduce life-cycle total ownership costs by performing only the required repairs at the optimum time, and by reducing stocks of spares and repair parts to support maintenance operations.
CBM+ supports these objectives by encouraging the Services to employ condition monitoring technology and reliability analysis, such as RCM, to optimize operations and supportability of major systems
More effective maintenance requires a change in the culture of the maintenance community from a primarily reactive maintenance approach to a proactive, planned maintenance approach.
In this sense, initiatives like CBM+ must adopt a dynamic approach for evolving a set of capabilities, as opposed to perfect planning, development of comprehensive requirements, or comprehensive reengineering.
CBM+ initiatives include fully developed technologies and processes that can be implemented now as well as yet-to-be developed capabilities. CBM+ also uses proof-of-concept and prototype activity that can be applied incrementally, not waiting for a single solution package. To maintain consistency, CBM+ development should be based on a broad architecture and an enterprise framework that is open to modification and can be easily adjusted.
CBM+ represents a continuous development of maintenance processes and procedures that improve capabilities, practices, and technologies. CBM+ is a part of the transformation of maintenance practices from the Industrial Age to the Information Age through the appropriate use of emerging technologies to analyze near-real-time and historical weapon systems data to provide a predictive maintenance capability.
The challenge of CBM+ is to provide tangible effects to DoD operations across all categories of equipment. CBM+ is an opportunity to improve business processes, with the principal objective being improved maintenance performance across a broad range of benefits, including greater productivity, shorter maintenance cycles, lower costs, increased quality of the process, better availability, and enhanced reliability of materiel resources
All desired readiness improvement technology enhancement, readiness, or new process improvements must be developed or acquired. This includes the use of resources that are always limited.
Even with a policy that requires its implementation, CBM+ has to “buy its way” into the program.
Service leadership and the program and support managers want to do the right thing for the warfighter, but a return on the investment must be identified and justified. In the long run, any Service effort to develop and deploy CBM+ should be leveraged by other platforms and programs.
Guidebook describes the actions necessary to integrate these component elements into an operational capability for more effective and efficient support of the operational customer— the warfighter. The benefits to the warfighter can best be described within the context of three levels: tactical, operational, and strategic.
At the tactical level, CBM+ may mean new tools, test equipment, and embedded onboard diagnostics. These tools take advantage of current and emerging commercial and diagnostic technologies that translate system condition data such as temperature, vibration, cycle-time in combination with environmental factors like desert, arctic, and high humidity into proactive maintenance actions that are performed only when there is evidence of actual need.
With CBM+, maintainers can convert weapon system or equipment condition data into proactive maintenance actions. Scheduled inspections are supplemented or replaced because maintainers will have analytical data that describe the condition of the weapon system and its components.
To the commander at the operational level, CBM+ brings the ability to meet mission requirements and increase weapon system availability. CBM+ provides commanders, mission planners, and logistics providers with information that enables better maintenance decision making and mission assignment. CBM+ supports Focused Logistics by enhancing command situational awareness at the weapon system level.
While some CBM+ features are installed at individual platform level, the benefits of CBM+ are most effectively achieved when an entire fleet is incorporated and the information is leveraged. At the strategic level, CBM+ identifies maintenance actions based on a near-real-time assessment of equipment status from diagnostic sensors and equipment.
Data collected from embedded sensors, such as usage monitoring systems are then translated into predictive trends or metrics that anticipate when component failures will occur and identifies components that may require redesign or replacement to reduce high-failure rates.
Common use of items and data among the Services on like-systems will greatly reduce logistics footprints and costs/directives to ensure implementation in organic i.e., DoD in-house maintenance capabilities and operations as well as in commercially supported DoD systems and programs for both new and legacy weapon systems.
Institutionalization of the CBM+ strategy in relevant regulatory publications is the first step toward attaining the ultimate end state. The envisioned CBM+ operational environment will occur from the individual component to the platform level, in training courses, and the deployed environment.
Initially, Defense Acquisition Programs will exploit CBM+ opportunities as elements of system performance requirements during the design and development phase and throughout the life cycle. Once implemented, CBM+ will be the primary reliability driver in DoD’s TLCSM supportability strategy.
In concert with the other TLCSM enablers like CPI, cause-and-effect predictive modeling, and desired outcomes achieved through PBL, the implemented CBM+ strategy will help optimize key performance measures of materiel readiness—MA, MR, MDT, and OC.
Ideally, the desired CBM+ end state is a trained force of maintainers from the tactical field technician to the strategic system analyst working in an interoperable environment to maintain complex systems through the use of CBM+ processes and technologies.
Fully implemented CBM+ improves maintenance decisions and helps integrate all functional aspects of life-cycle management processes like acquisition, distribution, supply chain management, and system engineering.
The life of equipment will be extended if proactive maintenance is performed on weapon systems, equipment, and components as the designer envisioned. Proactive maintenance, like lubrication and filter changes, or even more extensive replacement of failure causing parts, will generally allow the equipment to run more efficiently and last longer, resulting in savings and greater readiness.
While it will not prevent all catastrophic end item failures, proactive maintenance will decrease the number of failures and overall equipment downtime. Minimizing these failures translates into savings in both maintenance and future capital equipment replacement costs.
Because of the inherent randomness of individual item failures, proactive maintenance cannot eliminate all failures. When failure does occur, corrective maintenance will be required.
1. How will readiness, availability, ready for tasking, down time (parts or maintenance), and/or unscheduled down time be affected?
Identify specific MOEs and metrics that are critical to support the customer expectations. Ensure that definitions are provided within assumptions and appropriate measures identified for analysis. Minimize the number of metrics being evaluated to ensure reasonable amount of effort is required to obtain and analyze data to arrive at fair and reasonable conclusions and recommendations. Impact should be assessed using the primary CBM+ metrics ‐ Operational availability, material readiness, total ownership cost, and mean downtime.
2. How does this initiative improve the overall awareness of equipment condition at the tactical and strategic levels?
Identify and define any potential systems interfaces, data exchange, decision processes, planned integration, and customer expectation in the key assumptions. Address incremental capability improvements that may impact the CBM+ ROI as new increments become available or are integrated into the overall maintenance and logistics processes. Ensure that relevant CBM+ functionality areas (fault detection, isolation, prediction, reporting, assessment, analysis, decision‐support execution, and recovery, both on and off‐board) at the operational/ tactical command and strategic levels are assessed and addressed in the conclusions and recommendations.
3. How does this initiative increase the accuracy in failure prediction and situational awareness?
Identify specific system/sub‐system/component and existing performance levels (failure rate, etc.) that the CBM+ capability is targeted to support. Define and analyze related the CBM+ functionality areas of fault detection, isolation, prediction, reporting, assessment, analysis, decision‐support execution and recovery, both on and off‐board.
4. What is the projected impact on system/component level replacement frequency?
A CBM+ capability can provide the source data and analytical capability to determine projected Remaining Useful Life (RUL), repair/replace decisions, maintenance task frequency, etc. In defining the scope of the BCA ensure that any Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and diagnostic/trending data is used to define assumptions and establish a system/component maintenance/replacement MOEs baseline from which the overall CBM+ capability cost and benefit can be assessed.
5. What cost, schedule, and performance risk is projected based on proposed technology for procurement, implementation, and sustainment?
The CBM+ BCA should provide a conclusion and recommendation regarding the level of technology maturity and risk associated with the technology, including a sensitivity analysis regarding cost, schedule, and performance. Are there any contract alternatives (strategies) that will impact cost and schedule? Ensure that any known or pending contracts that may impact implementing a CBM+ capability or that may benefit from a CBM+ capability are considered when defining the scope of the CBM+ BCA. The impact on and from related CBM+ contracts should be addressed in the risk assessment and sensitivity analysis portion of the CBM+ BCA.
6. What maintenance tasks or functions can be eliminated or reduced?
The CBM+ BCA should identify potential functions, tasks, or systems/components that will be impacted by a CBM+. The level of detail that the CBM+ BCA can generate will be based on the existing system, whether an RCM analysis has been done, and what level of maintenance data is available. To the maximum extent possible identify the proposed capability in terms of the CBM+ functionality areas of fault detection, isolation, prediction, reporting, assessment, analysis, decision‐support execution, and recovery, both on and off‐board.
7. How can data analysis and decision making be automated to reduce support costs?
Ensure that your specific logistic or maintenance process(es) which will utilize an analytical CBM+ tools/capabilities, such as trending, diagnostics and/or prognostics, are defined and that any potential CBM+ tasks, functions, and measures of effectives/metrics that will be affected by those tools are understood. What data needs to be collected to measure the costs/benefits of the CBM+? Early Planning for the data collection will be necessary and should examine each element and metric as to the source of data and what factors will bear on its accuracy. While collection of all elements is beneficial, those response elements that are discriminators should be the focus of the CBM+ metrics planning approach. This is best accomplished by engaging the User community in that discussion as early as possible in the acquisition life cycle. What are the data sources and limitations for the data that needs to be collected? The authoritative source for each data element needs to be established and a determination of whether the data is available should be established early in the CBM+ BCA planning process.
8. Does the CBM+ initiative improve our ability (schedule/cost/technical) to modify/improve current systems or design new systems?
Identify any “system” specific capability that the proposed CBM+ capability will help improve for the existing system or for projected future increments. Identify specific incremental capabilities and external systems interfaces that the CBM+ enhances, such as connectivity to near real time/real time weapon system health.
9. What is the TOC impact?
If you are conducting a CBM+ BCA with a primarily focus on reducing TOC, ensure that you identify the specific elements of TOC within the CBM+ BCA assumptions and MOEs. Also, properly define any analysis factors for the risk and sensitivity analysis to ensure conclusions and recommendations are fairly and comprehensively reached.
10. What is the projected ROI?
Ensure that you define ROI as well as an accurate estimate of the exiting sunk cost of your existing CBM+ capability. Consider the overall life cycle of your system to properly scope the proposed CBM+ capability and define any incremental increases planned over the system’s life cycle. Also recognize that other interfacing or connected systems may make a significant ROI contribution greater depending on the application, access, and use of CBM+ data.
Condition Based Maintenance Plus CBM+ is the application and integration of appropriate processes, technologies, and knowledge-based capabilities to improve the reliability and maintenance effectiveness of DoD systems and components
.
At its core, CBM+ is maintenance performed based on evidence of need provided by Reliability Centered Maintenance RCM analysis and other enabling processes and technologies.
CBM+ uses a systems engineering approach to collect data, enable analysis, and support the decision-making processes for system acquisition, sustainment, and operations.
DoD has identified warfighter expectations and made an effort to conduct support operations in a more effective as well as fiscally responsible manner. Under the umbrella of Total Life Cycle System Management TLCSM, the sustainment of a weapon system receives increased attention from Service leadership and program managers.
TLCSM establishes clear responsibilities and accountability for meeting warfighter expectations. It sets goals, tracks progress and status, and balances resources to accomplish desired material readiness.
CBM+, in concert with the other TLCSM tools, Continuous Process Improvement CPI, cause-and-effect predictive modeling and simulation M&S, and desired outcomes achieved through Performance Based Logistics PBL, will enhance materiel readiness.
CBM is an established approach to identifying and scheduling maintenance tasks. It employs continuous or periodic assessment of weapon system condition using sensors or external tests and measurements through first-hand observation or portable equipment.
The goal of CBM is to perform maintenance only when there is evidence of need. Integrating the enabling CBM+ capabilities builds upon the foundation of CBM. CBM+ continues to evolve from this original concept into the maintenance improvement strategy.
CBM+ includes a conscious effort to shift equipment maintenance from an unscheduled, reactive approach at the time of failure to a more proactive and predictive approach that is driven by condition sensing and integrated, analysis-based decisions.
CBM+ focuses on inserting technologies that improve maintenance capabilities and processes into both new and legacy weapon systems and integrates the support elements to enable enhanced maintenance-centric logistics system responses.
With more accurate predictions of impending failures based on real-time condition data, coupled with more timely and effective repairs, moving toward CBM+ will result in dramatic savings—in time and money—and improved weapon system availability and performance.
CBM+ uses modern maintenance tools, technologies, and processes to detect the early indications of a fault or impending failure to allow time for maintenance and supply channels to react and minimize the impact on system operational readiness and life-cycle costs.
CBM+ provides a means of optimizing the approach to maintenance, and is a vehicle to reduce scheduled maintenance requirements. The flexibility and optimization of maintenance tasks with CBM+ also reduces requirements for maintenance manpower, facilities, equipment, and other maintenance resources.
CBM+ is not a single process in itself. It is a comprehensive strategy to select, integrate, and focus a number of process improvement capabilities, thereby enabling maintenance managers and their customers to attain the desired levels of system and equipment readiness in the most cost-effective manner across the total life cycle of the weapon system.
CBM+ includes a variety of interrelated and independent capabilities and initiatives—some procedural and some technical— that can enhance basic maintenance tasks. At its core, CBM+ is maintenance performed upon evidence of need provided by RCM analysis and other enabling processes and technologies
To satisfy the requirements of a changing Defense Strategy, maintenance managers are challenged to apply CPI concepts and tools to improve maintenance agility and responsiveness. The goal is to increase operational availability and readiness and to reduce life-cycle total ownership costs by performing only the required repairs at the optimum time, and by reducing stocks of spares and repair parts to support maintenance operations.
CBM+ supports these objectives by encouraging the Services to employ condition monitoring technology and reliability analysis, such as RCM, to optimize operations and supportability of major systems
More effective maintenance requires a change in the culture of the maintenance community from a primarily reactive maintenance approach to a proactive, planned maintenance approach.
In this sense, initiatives like CBM+ must adopt a dynamic approach for evolving a set of capabilities, as opposed to perfect planning, development of comprehensive requirements, or comprehensive reengineering.
CBM+ initiatives include fully developed technologies and processes that can be implemented now as well as yet-to-be developed capabilities. CBM+ also uses proof-of-concept and prototype activity that can be applied incrementally, not waiting for a single solution package. To maintain consistency, CBM+ development should be based on a broad architecture and an enterprise framework that is open to modification and can be easily adjusted.
CBM+ represents a continuous development of maintenance processes and procedures that improve capabilities, practices, and technologies. CBM+ is a part of the transformation of maintenance practices from the Industrial Age to the Information Age through the appropriate use of emerging technologies to analyze near-real-time and historical weapon systems data to provide a predictive maintenance capability.
The challenge of CBM+ is to provide tangible effects to DoD operations across all categories of equipment. CBM+ is an opportunity to improve business processes, with the principal objective being improved maintenance performance across a broad range of benefits, including greater productivity, shorter maintenance cycles, lower costs, increased quality of the process, better availability, and enhanced reliability of materiel resources
All desired readiness improvement technology enhancement, readiness, or new process improvements must be developed or acquired. This includes the use of resources that are always limited.
Even with a policy that requires its implementation, CBM+ has to “buy its way” into the program.
Service leadership and the program and support managers want to do the right thing for the warfighter, but a return on the investment must be identified and justified. In the long run, any Service effort to develop and deploy CBM+ should be leveraged by other platforms and programs.
Guidebook describes the actions necessary to integrate these component elements into an operational capability for more effective and efficient support of the operational customer— the warfighter. The benefits to the warfighter can best be described within the context of three levels: tactical, operational, and strategic.
At the tactical level, CBM+ may mean new tools, test equipment, and embedded onboard diagnostics. These tools take advantage of current and emerging commercial and diagnostic technologies that translate system condition data such as temperature, vibration, cycle-time in combination with environmental factors like desert, arctic, and high humidity into proactive maintenance actions that are performed only when there is evidence of actual need.
With CBM+, maintainers can convert weapon system or equipment condition data into proactive maintenance actions. Scheduled inspections are supplemented or replaced because maintainers will have analytical data that describe the condition of the weapon system and its components.
To the commander at the operational level, CBM+ brings the ability to meet mission requirements and increase weapon system availability. CBM+ provides commanders, mission planners, and logistics providers with information that enables better maintenance decision making and mission assignment. CBM+ supports Focused Logistics by enhancing command situational awareness at the weapon system level.
While some CBM+ features are installed at individual platform level, the benefits of CBM+ are most effectively achieved when an entire fleet is incorporated and the information is leveraged. At the strategic level, CBM+ identifies maintenance actions based on a near-real-time assessment of equipment status from diagnostic sensors and equipment.
Data collected from embedded sensors, such as usage monitoring systems are then translated into predictive trends or metrics that anticipate when component failures will occur and identifies components that may require redesign or replacement to reduce high-failure rates.
Common use of items and data among the Services on like-systems will greatly reduce logistics footprints and costs/directives to ensure implementation in organic i.e., DoD in-house maintenance capabilities and operations as well as in commercially supported DoD systems and programs for both new and legacy weapon systems.
Institutionalization of the CBM+ strategy in relevant regulatory publications is the first step toward attaining the ultimate end state. The envisioned CBM+ operational environment will occur from the individual component to the platform level, in training courses, and the deployed environment.
Initially, Defense Acquisition Programs will exploit CBM+ opportunities as elements of system performance requirements during the design and development phase and throughout the life cycle. Once implemented, CBM+ will be the primary reliability driver in DoD’s TLCSM supportability strategy.
In concert with the other TLCSM enablers like CPI, cause-and-effect predictive modeling, and desired outcomes achieved through PBL, the implemented CBM+ strategy will help optimize key performance measures of materiel readiness—MA, MR, MDT, and OC.
Ideally, the desired CBM+ end state is a trained force of maintainers from the tactical field technician to the strategic system analyst working in an interoperable environment to maintain complex systems through the use of CBM+ processes and technologies.
Fully implemented CBM+ improves maintenance decisions and helps integrate all functional aspects of life-cycle management processes like acquisition, distribution, supply chain management, and system engineering.
The life of equipment will be extended if proactive maintenance is performed on weapon systems, equipment, and components as the designer envisioned. Proactive maintenance, like lubrication and filter changes, or even more extensive replacement of failure causing parts, will generally allow the equipment to run more efficiently and last longer, resulting in savings and greater readiness.
While it will not prevent all catastrophic end item failures, proactive maintenance will decrease the number of failures and overall equipment downtime. Minimizing these failures translates into savings in both maintenance and future capital equipment replacement costs.
Because of the inherent randomness of individual item failures, proactive maintenance cannot eliminate all failures. When failure does occur, corrective maintenance will be required.
1. How will readiness, availability, ready for tasking, down time (parts or maintenance), and/or unscheduled down time be affected?
Identify specific MOEs and metrics that are critical to support the customer expectations. Ensure that definitions are provided within assumptions and appropriate measures identified for analysis. Minimize the number of metrics being evaluated to ensure reasonable amount of effort is required to obtain and analyze data to arrive at fair and reasonable conclusions and recommendations. Impact should be assessed using the primary CBM+ metrics ‐ Operational availability, material readiness, total ownership cost, and mean downtime.
2. How does this initiative improve the overall awareness of equipment condition at the tactical and strategic levels?
Identify and define any potential systems interfaces, data exchange, decision processes, planned integration, and customer expectation in the key assumptions. Address incremental capability improvements that may impact the CBM+ ROI as new increments become available or are integrated into the overall maintenance and logistics processes. Ensure that relevant CBM+ functionality areas (fault detection, isolation, prediction, reporting, assessment, analysis, decision‐support execution, and recovery, both on and off‐board) at the operational/ tactical command and strategic levels are assessed and addressed in the conclusions and recommendations.
3. How does this initiative increase the accuracy in failure prediction and situational awareness?
Identify specific system/sub‐system/component and existing performance levels (failure rate, etc.) that the CBM+ capability is targeted to support. Define and analyze related the CBM+ functionality areas of fault detection, isolation, prediction, reporting, assessment, analysis, decision‐support execution and recovery, both on and off‐board.
4. What is the projected impact on system/component level replacement frequency?
A CBM+ capability can provide the source data and analytical capability to determine projected Remaining Useful Life (RUL), repair/replace decisions, maintenance task frequency, etc. In defining the scope of the BCA ensure that any Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and diagnostic/trending data is used to define assumptions and establish a system/component maintenance/replacement MOEs baseline from which the overall CBM+ capability cost and benefit can be assessed.
5. What cost, schedule, and performance risk is projected based on proposed technology for procurement, implementation, and sustainment?
The CBM+ BCA should provide a conclusion and recommendation regarding the level of technology maturity and risk associated with the technology, including a sensitivity analysis regarding cost, schedule, and performance. Are there any contract alternatives (strategies) that will impact cost and schedule? Ensure that any known or pending contracts that may impact implementing a CBM+ capability or that may benefit from a CBM+ capability are considered when defining the scope of the CBM+ BCA. The impact on and from related CBM+ contracts should be addressed in the risk assessment and sensitivity analysis portion of the CBM+ BCA.
6. What maintenance tasks or functions can be eliminated or reduced?
The CBM+ BCA should identify potential functions, tasks, or systems/components that will be impacted by a CBM+. The level of detail that the CBM+ BCA can generate will be based on the existing system, whether an RCM analysis has been done, and what level of maintenance data is available. To the maximum extent possible identify the proposed capability in terms of the CBM+ functionality areas of fault detection, isolation, prediction, reporting, assessment, analysis, decision‐support execution, and recovery, both on and off‐board.
7. How can data analysis and decision making be automated to reduce support costs?
Ensure that your specific logistic or maintenance process(es) which will utilize an analytical CBM+ tools/capabilities, such as trending, diagnostics and/or prognostics, are defined and that any potential CBM+ tasks, functions, and measures of effectives/metrics that will be affected by those tools are understood. What data needs to be collected to measure the costs/benefits of the CBM+? Early Planning for the data collection will be necessary and should examine each element and metric as to the source of data and what factors will bear on its accuracy. While collection of all elements is beneficial, those response elements that are discriminators should be the focus of the CBM+ metrics planning approach. This is best accomplished by engaging the User community in that discussion as early as possible in the acquisition life cycle. What are the data sources and limitations for the data that needs to be collected? The authoritative source for each data element needs to be established and a determination of whether the data is available should be established early in the CBM+ BCA planning process.
8. Does the CBM+ initiative improve our ability (schedule/cost/technical) to modify/improve current systems or design new systems?
Identify any “system” specific capability that the proposed CBM+ capability will help improve for the existing system or for projected future increments. Identify specific incremental capabilities and external systems interfaces that the CBM+ enhances, such as connectivity to near real time/real time weapon system health.
9. What is the TOC impact?
If you are conducting a CBM+ BCA with a primarily focus on reducing TOC, ensure that you identify the specific elements of TOC within the CBM+ BCA assumptions and MOEs. Also, properly define any analysis factors for the risk and sensitivity analysis to ensure conclusions and recommendations are fairly and comprehensively reached.
10. What is the projected ROI?
Ensure that you define ROI as well as an accurate estimate of the exiting sunk cost of your existing CBM+ capability. Consider the overall life cycle of your system to properly scope the proposed CBM+ capability and define any incremental increases planned over the system’s life cycle. Also recognize that other interfacing or connected systems may make a significant ROI contribution greater depending on the application, access, and use of CBM+ data.
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