Military-Off-The-Shelf (MOTS) Acquisition: It’s Easier Isn’t It?
By now you’ve probably heard it a thousand times over. ‘Buy MOTS and project schedule, technical and cost risk will evaporate’. It’s a very seductive mantra in wide use throughout the world today. But is it true? And is it applicable to complex technology acquisition?
For all force development and acquisition professionals, understanding the key issues of the MOTS vs Development debate is essential to developing the correct acquisition strategy for complex military technology projects.
Key Point #1
It is important to recognise that most MOTS technologies are manufactured and developed to meet mission/user requirements (including tactics, techniques and procedures, TTPs) that are likely to differ from those of the acquiring country. This fact produces design solutions that match the military culture and war fighting methods for which the technology was originally designed.
Now for militaries with similar war fighting doctrine and TTPs this shouldn’t pose a big problem. But where this isn’t the case, acquirers of complex MOTS systems need to appreciate this fact and plan accordingly. Early trialing of military systems should discover such mismatches between offered designs and the user’s Tactics Techniques & Procedures (TTP). Discovering such issues when in contract is usually costly and can cause significant schedule delay.
Key Point #2
Good reliability performance of military systems is a key component of mission success. In fact, achieving good reliability is one of a project’s key technical requirements that must be planned for early, takes time to verify and consumes significant resources.
‘But we’re buying MOTS and we don’t need to worry about reliability’, I hear you say. Don’t be fooled. Reliability performance is strongly correlated to the operational environment of the military vehicle system. For instance, if a military system’s mission profile used in the original design process emphasized cold/wet operations, then you can be confident that a MOTS system should achieve claimed reliability in a similar environment.
But for other environments – such as hot/wet – this isn’t likely to be the case. The reason for this is that failure modes in equipment are dependent on the operational environment. Thus, operating MOTS technology in a new operational environment is likely to reduce reliability performance.
So to avoid poor reliability performance and its negative effects on mission availability and life-cycle cost, plan to do reliability testing as part of your MOTS systems engineering program.
Key Point #3
Another common headache encounter during complex MOTS programs concerns the systems integration of C4ISR systems. Quite often the integration of these systems involves either current in-service equipment or new systems that the MOTS solution was not designed for. Commonly encountered technical problems arise in the areas of electrical power budget, EMC/EMI interference, radhaz, and lack of suitable installation space.
Unfortunately for militaries acquiring MOTS technology, there is no simple solution to this problem. The cost and schedule impacts of systems integration can be reduced by requiring tenderers to confirm technical feasibility of integrating C4ISR systems prior to contract signature. Providing the acquirer has clearly specified the systems to be integrated, then this risk can be readily transferred to the prime contractor.
To learn more about the Eggler Institute of Technology’s specialist systems engineering and project management courses addressing this important issue, please visit our course catalogue.
About the Author
Mark Eggler, BE (Hons), MSc, CPEng. Mark has over 30 years experience as a project manager and professional engineer working on complex military vehicle projects. He has worked for the Australian Department of Defence and international OEMs on large military vehicle acquisition programs and teaches technical leadership, systems engineering and military vehicle technology worldwide.
