Successfully Estimating COTS Costs in Weapon System Lifecycles

With the allied forces ongoing operations in OIF/OEF, excruciating demands are placed on weapon systems. With the greater need for new equipment in an appropriate time frame, the traditional development and design of MILSPEC items just takes too long. To counter this problem the military is turning to COTS components and deploying systems into theater faster.

However utilizing COTS components features its own set of dilemmas. Because of reliability issues, COTS components are affecting the lifecycle of equipment, resulting in over budgeting and causing mission failures!

Ultimately Program Managers need to be able to accurately estimate costs on fielding supply and repairing; they need to learn how to manage costs.

This 90-minute webinar, with Ron Giuntini, will go a long way toward avoiding mission failures, while implementing cost-effective solutions and expert tips on how to cut through the red tape for approval.

Additionally, key takeaways of this seminar are that you’ll:

• Learn a step-by-step approach to employing COTS components successfully.
• Get cost effective solutions and expert tips on how to cut through the red tape for approval.
• Gain knowledge on how to successfully employ the COTS components to reduce supply lead times.
• Discover how to maintain budgets and operational availability and avoiding high equipment failure rate ensuring operational success in the field.

Learn specifically what to ask for in the approval process and what you should avoid. You will also gain in-depth understanding of which fields COTS has had success in and the reasons why. Conversely you will get a better understanding of where COTS components are still lacking and what the future holds.

Specifically, you’ll discuss the following mission-critical topics:

Testimonials:

Military
"Ron was able to rapidly reverse a very challenging logistics initiative that had turned south. His ability to use best commercial practices and his extensive experience with military systems made the difference in our ability to once again move forward with our program." – Lt Colonel, US Army

Commercial
"Our financial department was all over our case about the large increase in our investment in service parts to support our installed base of construction equipment…and our Marketing department was beating us up without mercy because customers were complaining that we never could deliver the parts they needed, which was in almost all cases ASAP. We were getting hammered on all sides. We needed help. By chance we had visited a sister company and were sharing some war stories when we started talking about our service parts challenges. Before we could finish our story of woe, our hosts said just call Ron; he has been working with us for five years and we have been able to make the Finance and Marketing teams happy, but most of all our customers…and we grew more than 100 percent during the time that Ron has worked with us.

We were able to quickly have Ron visit us to scope out our challenges. Within one week Ron had sent us a fixed price proposal to get us back on the right track. Within 3 months after Ron and his team began working with us, we started seeing some results. The real test was during our annual operator symposium; there was a unanimous agreement by our customers that we were getting our act together on parts. Our finance folks were also happy because we were able to keep our parts investment flat, with a 30 percent increase in volume and an eight percentage point increase in fill rates. Ron helped us make some major changes to our parts planning application software system; in his honor we now call it Giuntini’s System." – Vice President, Construction Industry OEM

Benefits of Attending:

At this webinar, you’ll learn a step-by-step approach to employing COTS components successfully. Get cost effective solutions and expert tips on how to cut through the red tape for approval. Learn specifically what to ask for in the approval process and what you should avoid. You will also gain in-depth understanding of which fields COTS has had success in and the reasons why. Conversely you will get a better understanding of where COTS components are still lacking and what the future holds.

Attendees will receive a FREE copy of Ron Giuntini’s whitepapers on "The 20 Elements of a Military Sector Outcome-Based Product Support Business Model" and "The Trailing Edge Technology Business Model" prior to the webinar.