TABLE OF CONTENTS Supportability engineering is responsible for identification of the physical resources required to support the system being acquired. This activity is totally different from functional supportability analysis that was described earlier in this book. Physical supportability analysis is typically done at a much later stage of the acquisition process and may be performed by a completely different organization. The system design must be in its final stages of completion in order to perform physical supportability analysis. In some cases, several years have transpired since functional supportability analysis was completed, and in other cases, it may be only a few months later. Timing of performance is dependent on the status of the design evolution. Since subsystems and assemblies contained in the design of a system evolve at different rates, it is entirely possible for some physical supportability analysis to begin when other areas of a system are still under development. Every acquisition program is different, so timing of commencing physical supportability analysis is dependent on the specifics of the program and engineering schedules. The Roadmap to Success provided at Appendix A illustrates how this process uses the program and engineering schedules as the basis for determining how to...
