With the introduction of modern complex technical products, a proper support system must be made available in a timely manner. This requires an extended analysis process to ensure consideration of product support requirements during the design of the product and its support system. The process includes a number of analysis activities concerning a wide range of technical and support considerations and the careful documentation of the results of these analysis activities. The achievement of proper supportability is of crucial importance concerning operation and life cycle costs. Early consideration of product support aspects is increasingly important with regard to both operational and economic aspects. A product that cannot be operated and maintained properly and cost effectively is not acceptable to the operator.
Additionally, a support solution must be scrutinized on a regular basis by analyzing operational and cost efficiency. For this purpose, optimization processes are required. In the S-series IPS specifications, those processes are In-Service Support Optimization (ISSO), documented in S3000L, and In-Service Maintenance Optimization (ISMO), documented in S4000P.
S3000L, International procedure specification for Logistics Support Analysis (LSA), is a trans-Atlantic specification that outlines the logistics support process that is required to improve the support of a product throughout its lifecycle.
The S3000L specification is designed to cover the activities and requirements governing the establishment of the LSA process.
S3000L:
- provides rules for the establishment of the product breakdown and for the selection of LSA candidate items to be analyzed in detail
- describes type and methodology of the specified analysis activities
- provides guidelines about how to process the results of analysis activities and on how to achieve a cost-efficient support solution
- provides guidelines on how to identify and describe product support task requirements
- provides guidelines on how to describe a product support task by the means of a Maintenance Task Analysis (MTA)
- provides guidelines how to scrutinize an existing support solution by the means of an ISSO process
- covers the interface to the customer within the LSA process
- covers the interface between the LSA process and the support engineering areas (eg reliability, maintainability and testability)
- covers the interface between the LSA process and other IPS elements, which provide the typical Integrated Product Support (IPS) deliverables:
- personnel and training
- supply support
- technical data services
- special support and test equipment
- facilities and infrastructure
- IT support
