Sustainability and sustainable development have become popular goals. They have also become wide-ranging terms that can be applied to any entity or enterprise on a local or a global scale for long time periods. As enterprises and systems become more complex and development a support costs increase, the question remains: how does one engineer an enterprise or a product for sustainability? Engineering for Sustainability provides common sense information for engineering, planning, and carrying out those tasks needed to sustain military products and services and, in turn, the entire enterprise.

This book tackles the problem from the top down, beginning with discussions on planning initiatives and implementing sustainable activities. It outlines a series of principles to help engineers design products and services to meet customer and societal needs with minimal impact on resources and the ecosystem. Using examples and case studies from the government, military, academia, and commercial enterprises, the authors provide a set of tools for long-term sustainability and explain how an entire enterprise can be engineered to sustain itself.

Achieving the high levels of sustainability needed in complex military and industrial systems is too often an elusive goal. Competing rules and regulations, conflicting goals and performance metrics, the desire to incorporate promising commercial off-the-shelf technologies, and the pressures of maintenance schedules contribute to this elusiveness. This book provides an analysis of and prescription for the strategies, principles, and technologies necessary to sustain the military and the systems it develops and uses. This can then be used to make any enterprise more efficient and cost effective in a changing environment.

The text focuses on five abilities that must be considered to achieve efficient, cost-saving operations:

• Availability of required parts, facilities, tools, and manpower
• Dependability of the weapon systems
• Capability of the enterprise to perform the mission
• Affordability and improving the life cycle cost (LCC) of a system or project
• Marketability of concepts and motivating decision makers

Aging weapons systems, an aging workforce, limited financial resources, new technologies, and an increased military operational tempo demand that the military develop an aggressive transformation plan for its sustainability. This book follows An Architecture for a Lean Transformation, the first in a series dedicated to the sustainment of an enterprise. In this second volume, the authors continue to provide an analysis of, and prescription for, the strategies, principles, and technologies that are necessary to sustain an enterprise like the military and the weapons system it develops and utilizes.

Sustaining the Military Enterprise describes a Lean Enterprise Architecture (LEA) strategy to transform sustainment processes. It incorporates the management and technical skills necessary to design and implement cost effective, integrated, sustainment networks and agile organizational structures. The application of LEA to military sustainment initiatives will lead to less resource intensive and less organizationally disruptive practices than seen in traditional Lean enterprise transformation methods.

The book is organized into six chapters, which focus on three major subject categories. Topics include management techniques for transforming the military sustainment enterprise, improving the enterprise, process improvement initiatives and benchmarking best practices, and activities for enterprise transformation. The text also provides an assessment and description of the current military sustainment system and a guide to the LEA transformation. Through an intensive examination of new technologies, tools, and strategies, the author provides a means for military sustainment initiatives to achieve a successful transformation.