COTS GUIDE - Commercial Off-the-Shelf

1 AIR FORCE MATERlEL COMMANDCOTSCOMMERCLtiOFF-THE-SHELFGUIDEJ AN 1993 FOREWORDAs anaid to the user,references in this GUIDE to the draftAirForce policy on Commercial - Off-the-Shelf (COTS) are presentedin bold,italicized OF Logistics Support (ILS).. Evaluation/Product Assurance .. isl~Comercial?l~..6 Selecting Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS)..10 TheCOTS Acguisition PrOCeSS ..=..- Should a COTS Decision be Made? .. 12 Preparing for a Market InvestigationConducting a Market to Tell Prospective Sources14 What to Ask Prospective Sources15 Analyzin _ .. 17ig the Replies ..'l 19 Placing COTS on Needs forCommercial ProductsThe Four Major Areas of Configuration Management and Maintenance and Sparing The Repair Sustainability.. Control During the28 Life to.

2 29 COTS Much Should You Test?Depth of TestingTesting ..to a COTS DecisionTesting COTS SelectionFollow-on ..3333343535363 PARAGRAPH .. ~~~~.~.. 37 ~ :A COTS Decision :..432:..47 FIGURETITLELIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSPAGEThe Commercial Spectrum ._ *.a ~..l.~..l .~ 7 The Nondevelopmental Item the Air Force Tolerate the Risk?..11 Logistic SupportAnalysis in COTS :Design Drives COTS Stops Being establish the tone of this guidebook thefollowing policy statement is quoted from the AF draft Sup to :" Commercial items should be acquired, used, and supportedas found in the civilian market and allowed to evolve with thechanges andupdatesthevendor providesto hiscommercialcustomers."You will see time and time again where this policystatementis stressed and referred tothroughout this More and more Commercial equipment and software are being-used by the military,eitherstanding alone or integrated ,thisoffersfront-endacquisition advantages of lowerresearch and development costsand lesstime to field than MIL-SPEC products areusedunchanged,theGovernmentcanalsoben efitL Lfromtheeconomies ofdealing in a high-volume civilian market.

3 There aremany success stories. Improper planning, however, can cause long-term problems in mission performance and support that may _alternative oritsexecution compromisesdesign,operating orsupport integrity,the Air Force's war-fighting mission can The objectives of any Air Force acquisition are to obtain aproductthatwill doitsintendedjob initsintendedenvironment;that can be repaired or replaced when it fails in amanner thatdoesn't degrade or add risk to its mission; and thatcan do these things at the least ,onlyequipmentspecificallydesigned -for military use was thoughtcapable of meeting the first two objectives,and it wasalsothoughtto be the least costly over its life have placed greateremphasison usingcommercial items becausestudies have showntheirinitial costs and lead times to be generally less than forMIL-SPEC development.

4 However,unless you carefully consider thetotal life cycle costsand risks of Commercial versus MIL-SPEC items,you may make the wrong decisions. These decisions shouldnever be guidebookis to assist youin decidingwhen to usecommercial products and when to develop MIL-SPFC items, and, oncethat decision favors the Commercial alternative, how you shouldhandle testing and :In this GUIDE we will refer tothe source of a commercialitem as the"vendor,"thethis we mean the"supplier" or the "manufacturer.*' Byucompanyowningthe rights to the :nesthatcompany r;illbe the prime contractor;frequenzly;*iu"Tl be a _A& What is " Commercial "?MYTH BUSTERS 1It can't be "COTS" without beingcommercial,"but it can be " Commercial "without being "COTS." The definition of a Commercial item as stated in the DFARSPART is" Commercial items means items regularly used in thecourse of normal business operations forother than Governmentpurposes which:(1) Have beensold or licensed to the generalpublic:(2) Have notbeen sold or licensed, but have beevoffered for sale or license tc the general public:(3) Are 'n(Yetavailable inthecommercialmarketplace, butwill bavailable for Commercial delivery in a reasonable period of time:(4) Are described in paragraphs (l), (2), or (3) that wouldrequire only minor modificationin order to meet the requirementsof the procuring agency.)

5 "In laymen terms a Commercial item is aproduct(hardware or software)used for otherthan governmentpurposes;sold or traded to the general public in the course ofnormal business operations and used "as is" when acquired by thegovernment. Thatis the basis of the term," Commercial Off-the-Shelf " or"COTS,"althoughthelabel is now commonly(anderroneously) applied to almostany non-MIL-SPEC item,includingmany not to be found on the civilian In reality, the " Commercial "designation can be broken downinto several categories(Figure 1).Starting from pure MIL-SPEC(MIL-SPEC design using militarized parts), there is government-controlled design built to"best Commercial practice"(commercialdesign practice and parts).Then there are vendor-originatedcommercial designs for which the military is the primary or onlycustomer.

6 (Call these"olive drab Commercial .") Slightly beyondthat,but not yet true COTS, are " Commercial -type" items modifiedto meet some government-peculiar hardware or software requirementoraddition, orotherwiseidentified differently from theirno,rmal, , wehave vender-control designs forthe open market ("COTS"), as defined above. To rnLprecisely describe these categories:THE Commercial DMBCOYL-TYPEPRACT:CECOMMERCIAL("SPECIAL" )DESIGNGovtFEATURESM ilitarziedGovt: NotComl: JustCOTS: ModHilltariredfor GovtforGovtEWPLESFL ghterAircraftCONFIGG overnmentAC -UOR *V*.* .b__DESIGNLowSTAB. RISKtIILONG-TERJ!SPT/COSTR:SKFixedTactic alGround RadioRadzoProbably100%FullMostly F3*(piece par:)Maybe FullGoverxnentVendor crForeign GovtModerateto LowModerateEmoeddedComputerSmall (ofbasic Item)Probably F3*Full neededDomestic orO/S HighHighFor CivrlMarketSmallDomestic orO/S VendorHighModeratetc High*Fo_rm,fit and functionFigure 1a.

7 'ML-SPEC"construction: Ais the classic military approach to design is financing the desian effort, will ultimately EEEand control the design,and intends that it be rugged enouah towithstand battlefield design philosophy and selection ofparts are -strictly according to militarystandards, and, typically, acquisition cost and lead time areb. Occasionally it will be decided that while the Governmentmustsponscritsthe development of a peculiar piece cf eouipmen+applicationWill_ilallowtheuse cf astanday;;_-_zed design orThusthe contractor is allowed tobuild to "best Commercial practice." He uses parts and designpracticesclid enought0withstandtypical civilian duty, butwhich probably wouldn't stand up ona governnent -designforgovernmentless expensive to 's still'C,use, but ii ssubstantrall)-C.

8 "Olive drab Commercial " products come from a segment ofindustry orientedto selling military equipment to the US andforeign governments and willing to undertake development ofmilitarized orsemi-militarized designs at their own we select their products the military gets what usuallyamounts to MIL-SPEC hardware without having to sponsor or waitfor its design. These originate as nongovernment designs_ fornoncivilian useexcept for the occasional product, such as anaircraft engine,that might have military roots. While we do notget design visibility or control over such items, we often do getthe vendor's cooperation in keeping them stable because we'reessentially the sole customer.(Military designs developed forforeigngovernmentshouldalso beconsidered" "). stock Commercial design can become " Commercial type"eitherthrough modification for the Government's use (para )or by havingbecome peculiar by default, merely by being heldstable while its brethren in other applications have received _progressive updates from designs,especiallycomputers,oftencrossov erto thiscategorywhentheyareembedded in alargersystemwhosearchitecturewon'tallow routineCOTS _Inongovernment designs for noncommercial use,but without theadvantageof the Government being the vendor's sole thathappens those designs canno longer be considered CUTS.

9 (See Appendix 1, Question 4.) as anarrowly-limitedcategory: Acommercial productfor Commercial use. It is bought exactly asfound inthe civilian market,andallowed toflowwith thechangesandupdatesthevendor provides ,raise if COTS is allowed to be modified or notreceive the upgrades providedto the Commercial market it willbecome A! uniqueand no longer supported by the The last two categories are the primary considerations ofthishandbook;"bestcommercialpractice" -and"olivedrabcommercial usually respond to MIL-SPEC-type surewhichcategory orcategories you're dealing with;confusionbetween them can lead to costly 2 Elsewhere in the DOD :he term"nondevelopmental item (NDI)" isfrequently used to mean "COTS .I We donot do that here,because COTS is anND1 subset,not it5 equal.

10 An ND1 isany item that wasn't developed forthis particular project. Figure 2illustrates the ITEM HIERARCHYNONDEVELOP%NTXITEMS (ND:)-_. _____GOVERN&LENTNONGOVERNUN"DESIGNDESIGN - .. )?:L-SPEC GovtFurn Eqa:p (GFE)- "BestCommercialPractice" GFECOMMERCIAL-TYPE ITEXS--_COMMERCIAL, Modified C0"S_- Domestic COTS- Olive Drab Corn1- Fore?.gn COT- Forelqn MilitaryGovernment designNongovernment designforCommercial designforforGovernment useNoncommercial useCommerciai useFigure Selecting Understand that the major advantagedesignformilitaryuseessentially of adoptingcontainscommercialitsmajordisadv antage:Because tAe Government didn't fund and wait for thedesign effort,we can get an advanced product cheaper and fasterthan if we had. However,for that same reason we have no legalright to know how the contractor or vendor designed the item, norcan we control changes to that we start doing that itstopsbeing ismentioned frequently because it'sreally the key reason why effectiveCOTS employment and supportdemand rethinking ofsome traditional approaches.