((a)) ** .—** A product support manager is the individual responsible for managing product support required to field and maintain the readiness and operational capability of a covered system throughout the life cycle of the covered system.
((b)) ** .—** The Secretary of Defense shall designate a product support manager for each covered system who shall be coequal with the program manager for such covered system and report directly to the portfolio acquisition executive responsible for such covered system.
((c)) ** .—** The product support manager shall seek to achieve the objectives of the defense acquisition system established pursuant to and shall identify, develop, implement, incentivize, and measure quantifiable best value outcome-based product support that optimizes life-cycle cost, readiness, and operational capability of a covered system.
((d)) ** .—** A product support manager shall be responsible for the following with respect to a covered system:
((1)) Developing and executing the product support strategy required under .
((2)) Providing product support and subject matter expertise to the relevant program manager and portfolio acquisition executive.
((3)) Collaborating with chief engineers and systems engineers—
((A)) in developing the life-cycle sustainment plan and product support strategy required under ; and
((B)) to analyze the operating and support costs to ensure cost-effective operation, management, and availability of the covered system.
((3)) Adopting predictive analytics and simulation and modeling tools to improve materiel availability and reliability, increase operational availability rates, and reduce operation and sustainment costs.
((4)) Conducting product support business case analyses to provide a structured, iterative methodology to compare and assess the full impact of product support alternatives and provide data-informed recommendations that balance requirements with affordability. Such analyses shall—
((A)) enable the development of the product support strategy as early as possible, but not later than Milestone B approval has been granted for the covered system; and
((B)) inform proposed updates or changes in the product support strategy as needed.
((5)) Reviewing and recommending resource allocations across product support integrators and product support providers to meet performance requirements of the product support strategy.
((6)) Coordinating product support arrangements between product support integrators and product support providers across materiel commands, depots, sustainment working capital funds, and commercial entities to execute the product support strategy and maintain updated parts cataloging and provisioning.
((7)) Seeking to resolve issues relating to diminishing manufacturing supply, material shortages, critical readiness items of supply.
((8)) Managing the end-to-end coordination process related to qualification, certification, and testing of alternative sources of supply for critical readiness items of supply.
((9)) Ensuring the evaluation and selection of product support integrators and product support providers that are best suited to execute the product support strategy.
((e)) ** .—** In this section:
((1)) The term “best value” has the meaning given in .
((2)) The terms “covered system”, “critical readiness items of supply”, “product support”, “product support arrangement”, “product support integrator”, and “product support provider” have the meanings given, respectively, in .
