In late November and early December 2016, three Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) leaders and an intern from the product support office (PSO) traveled to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to brief the Naval Construction and Engineering Course.

Chief Logistician Capt. Dave Lockney, Product Support Lead David Franck, Product Support Manager for Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) Tom Murphy and Lifecycle Logistics Intern Robert Stukes had the opportunity to provide an example and give a demonstration regarding the critical importance of logistics in the early stages of system design and acquisition.

The NSWC PHD team was invited by Lt. Cmdr. Jon Page, associate professor of the practice, naval construction, and engineering. Page was impressed with the capabilities and applicability of integrated decision environments (IDE) and thought it was important to incorporate the product lifecycle management (PLM) principles of design influence and sustaining engineering into graduate-level ship design curriculum.

The students in this prestigious program are the next generation of innovators from the U.S. Navy, U.S Coast Guard, and foreign navies.

The two-day briefing to the students was well received and left a strong impression on the instructor. The lecture provided theory and the practical application of the enterprise product lifecycle management integrated decision environment (ePLM IDE).

Almost immediately after returning to NSWC PHD, the briefing team started to see the fruits of their labor. Their efforts showed indications of a strong harvest. Students from the course provided positive feedback at the end of the semester, which in part, led to involvement in future courses and the integration of ePLM IDE.

"A partnership with a university like MIT is invaluable to the credibility of the program," Lockney said. "The more we can influence future chief engineers and program managers about the value of product support and design influence and give them the tools to appropriately apply the methodology, the better our acquisition programs will be."

ePLM IDE is a government-developed suite of integrated commercial off-the-shelf software applications within a collaborative environment. ePLM IDE consists of PLM and IDE.

PLM is a consistent set of business solutions, which support the collaborative creation, management, dissemination, and use of product definition information, spanning from product concept to end of life. It is a model-based enterprise, which provides a structured and authoritative product information backbone for weapons systems. IDE, combined with PLM tools, establishes critical links between configuration changes, system baselines, and supporting analysis.

The system increases efficiency, minimizes cost, optimizes availability and improves fleet readiness.

What does the future hold for NSWC PHD and MIT?

* The two organizations are looking at establishing a university partnership agreement to allow students to use ePLM IDE software and tools to perform academic research and design projects.

* In the spring semester first-year students will receive an introduction to the concepts of product support, which will cover the basics of integrated product support.

* In the fall semester second-year students will be taught how product support fits into the overall cost of ship design.

* NSWC PHD PSO and AMDR personnel will teach in future courses.

One student was so impressed by the lectures he decided to do his senior thesis based on ePLM IDE tenets.

ePLM IDE supports the program executive office, integrated warfare systems (PEO IWS) 2.0's PLM requirements for AMDR, the enterprise air search radar program and the directed energy program and provides a tactical advantage to new acquisition programs by operationalizing affordable system operational effectiveness principles.

"This technology is cutting-edge for acquisition," Franck said.

ePLM IDE became the tool of choice for PEO IWS 2.0, who recently added their sponsorship to the program. In addition, PSO is working with the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) to establish ePLM IDE as a program of record. If all goes well, this will happen later in the year.

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