What is ILS?

“ILS is a construct made up by consultants, to spend the available budget, to generate employment and to confuse senior executives, it is the last refuge of the charlatan”.

…Or so it has been described… and given some of the ILS programmes we have witnessed, we can understand such cynicism.

There are many standards which attempt to define what ILS is and to describe the ILS methodology, whether they have been successful or not is open to debate.  In part, such standards fail, as many ILS programmes fail, because they do not address the most fundamental principles that should lie at the core of any ILS methodology or ILS programme.

So perhaps it is time to get back to basics, time to ask some dumb questions such as what do we mean by “Integrated”, and what, precisely, is “logistic support”, what is LSA, what is the “product” of an ILS programme?

Rather than attempting to describe or to interpret ILS as it is defined in the standards or text books let’s adopt an alternative approach and ask what ILS should be, any fundamental principles should then become clear.

We can do this by approaching the problem in a logical and structured manner, applying a healthy dollop of good old fashioned common sense and a bit of clear thinking as we go.

We can start with a simple statement:

The output, the ‘Product’, of an ILS programme is a Support Solution. The aim of an ILS programme is to develop and then to maintain an optimal Support Solution. That Support Solution should be developed and maintained by applying the most logical, practicable, most cost effective methodology that it is possible to define.

I think this statement is uncontentious, we can develop our argument from here.  The first point to note is that we need to optimise two things, the Support Solution and the methodology by which that solution is developed. In other words, we need to optimise the Product and the Process of ILS.

An “Optimal” ILS Product will be a Support Solution that delivers the maximum Operational Capability, at minimum Through Life Cost [TLC]. We should note that 2, 3 and 4* officers from the Front Line Commands [FLCs] are asking for flexible, agile, dynamic and adaptable Support Solutions; they want greater support velocity, greater support precision, the ability to “Fight Hurt”, and greater visibility. We need to deliver this with shrinking finances and fewer resources.

We could spend a lot of time discussing what each of these statements means, which we haven’t the space to do here, but I think we can agree that what the FLCs want, that what they need, is an improved standard of engineering support, a better Support Solution.

We now need to define what we mean by a “Support Solution”.   This is a relatively simple question to answer; if we are going to support a piece of complex military equipment, that equipment, the ‘Mission System’ needs to be “supportable”. In addition we will need a lot of stuff, we will need physical resources, spares, tools, test equipment, consumables, transport, facilities, we will need a lot of information and information management systems, and we will need a lot of people, maintainers, suppliers, drivers, etc.

But plainly this is not enough, resources on their own will not meet the need, we will also need systems and processes to move, to deliver, to repair, to recover, to update, to resupply, to train and to retrain personnel …

…and these processes will then require additional resources, for example training materials, class rooms, training aids and teachers.

i.e.    We need a support infrastructure that will get the right stuff, the right resources, in the right place, in the right quantities, in the right condition, at the right time.

This support infrastructure will be very complex, it can be regarded as a system, the Support System. This Support System must complement the Mission System and it must take account of the manner and the environment in which that Mission System is operated and supported, we call the definition of the operating and support environment the Employment Plan. The Employment Plan must take cognisance of the Support System, its capabilities and its limitations. Now the Mission System design has many features that will influence support (reliability, robustness, durability, architecture, built-in obsolescence and many more), so wherever possible an ILS programme should strive to optimise, to achieve the right balance, between these aspects of the Mission System design (within the given constraint, e.g. cost and technical feasibility).