A Confluence of Challenges and People: Birth of the Complex System Sustainment Management Model

In my last post, here, I said:

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The Utah Chapter of the International Council on Systems Engineering has invited me to be their guest speaker for February 2017. 

My blog readers get a little preview here.

I will be speaking on the following theme:

A unique confluence of historical events has led to the proliferation of complex systems that are increasingly being employed for longer and longer lifetimes. And a unique confluence of challenges and talent has led to the complex system sustainment management model.

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I then proceeded in that last blog post to lay out the words and illustrations for the first part of my presentation on historical events.

This post picks up the second part, challenges and talented people. 

As this presentation is for the Utah Chapter of the International Society of Systems Engineers (INCOSE), it would be good to mention the INCOSE definition of systems engineering, per their web site, here paraphrased for brevity:

Interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems

     - Integrates all the disciplines and specialty groups into a team effort
     - Helps form structured processes 

They go on to say that the approach is characterized by considering the entire need and the entire system, thorough documentation, and validation at every step. And they suggest that any system engineering endeavor should follow these steps:

1. State the problem
2. Investigate alternatives
3. Model the system
4. Integrate
5. Launch the system
6. Assess performance
7. Re-evaluate

Regular readers of this blog will recognize that key points of the complex systems sustainment management model mirror the ideas above.

This is no accident. 

The sustainment management model was heavily influenced by graduates of the University of Southern California Institute of Safety and Systems Management (ISSM), as mentioned and illustrated in the last post.

USC's ISSM created a program to help managers of complex systems to do a better job of management. Systems engineering was a strong influence on that program. And many members of the ICBM sustainment team were graduates of that program.

Still, along with talented people, there was a confluence of system challenges to drive excellent people to create a great sustainment management model.

The ICBM "mafia" was remarkably united. This could be due in part to the trials and tribulations of representing missiles in a pilot's air force. Logistics Command, Systems Command, and Strategic Air Command found that they scored more funds when presenting a united front to the Pentagon. Within the Air Force, civil servants tended to stay working ICBMs for decades. Outside the Air Force, but on the same team, the contractors did not change much either, especially TRW, Inc, the contractor the Air Force used to provide systems engineering and technical assistance and the original ICBM contractors associated with key systems and subsystems.

Frequently, members of contractor teams were hired from the uniformed Air Force ICBM ranks when they separate or retired. This is another factor keeping the team close-knit.

Actually, all of this led to more than just a team. It led to a tribe that was fully dedicated to the ICBM mission. Members of the tribe quickly recognized each other and were quick to talk mission, especially to newer members of the tribe like I was in 1985. 

We were a tribe in the sense of Jack Donovan's recent books, The Way of Men and Becoming a Barbarian. We were a family apart from the greater society. We missileers included various communities such as ICBM combat crews, military acquisition experts, suppliers, major defense contractors, civil servants, & etc., all linked by mission. We had a common culture and dialect and recognized leaders. We even had many processes and methods different than the airplane Air Force.

We had strict rules of morality, integrity, truth, and honesty. We expected ourselves and our fellow tribe members to set aside ego and lose ourself in the mission. To succeed, we had to win, even loot and plunder other weapon systems' funds if we could. We had to take every advantage.

Like barbarians, outsiders might actually disparage us or our mission, but we wore the head of the wolf proudly.

Within the tribe, there were instances of members who did not "tow the line". Uniformed USAF members of Strategic Air Command who did not operate at a level of perfection were corrected on the spot. SAC members with repeated issues were fired. General Curtis LeMay (who created SAC from the left-overs of WWII, aggressive acquisition, and inspired leadership of his airmen) famously said: "I have neither the time nor the inclination to differentiate between the incompetent and the merely unfortunate". This level of performance tended to influence the Systems Command and Logistics Command members as well. 

In my own experience as a TRW SETA member who was also ex-SAC, we were quickly indoctrinated into the philosophy of "your job is to make your customer successful". This did not include claiming any credit for yourself. One of the mottos we were all taught was "it is amazing what you can accomplish when you don't try to seek the credit". We were scored by our bosses on our ability to explain complex technical and programmatic issues in straightforward ways that would aid USAF decision-makers to make the best decisions. "If you can't explain it in simple terms, you don't understand it well enough yourself."

The push was to keep the team of Air Force and contractors united and asking the right questions. Never say or do anything simply because it made you feel good to "get back at" someone. Uniformed military could lose patience, civil servants might get irritated, and other contractors may find TRW folks arrogant and insufferable. Reacting to this was not productive. My personal method (others did this as well) was to ask purely technical questions and practice active listening in the hopes that this would drive the team to come up with better questions and better answers. 

There were instances of members, sometimes USAF members, not doing their jobs. As a TRW engineer it was not surprising to be asked by a uniformed officer to do their jobs. It was typical to provide customers with "draft" letters already written in USAF format on USAF letterhead that required only a signature to make it "final". Each day could be a balancing act of working with your TRW boss to help make sure your customer's boss knew what they needed to know without losing your relationship with your customer. 

In subsequent years, starting after the merger of Systems Command and Logistics Command and the dissolution of SAC in 1992, there was a push to have civil servants get more career broadening throughout their careers and also to push for more contractor competition. ICBM processes have been more and more brought under the umbrella of the USAF processes. Although still dedicated and close-knit, the days of a team so close knit that they were sometimes called incestuous, appear gone. But they leave a legacy of the weapon system sustainment management model they created. 

One of 3 missile fields across the Northern US

This occurred because this dedicated, focused, mission-oriented team had a huge problem to deal with. 

ICBMs were perfect deterrence machines. For protection, they were isolated across thousands of square miles and buried in underground highly secure vaults. They were mostly dormant, awaiting a message to launch within seconds. 

Despite the lack of data flowing from the solid rockets or liquid rocket or other dormant systems, we were charged with ensuring they were capable. That is, they must be available, reliable, accurate, hard against attack, safe, and sure. 

Any suspected degradation must be spotted with years of lead time in order to ensure fixes were in place before the mission was compromised. And any fix must work seamlessly within an incredibly complex missile, missile silo, launch command complex, logistics system, repair depots, & etc. One small change could have unforeseen consequences. The original engineering documentation could be missing. All this over a period of time where priorities and funding for ICBMs was diminishing, unique contractors were closing shop, and some parts and components were no longer available. 

We had the perfect caldron for a dedicated team of experts to rise to the most difficult of sustainment challenges. The result of this confluence was the complex system sustainment management model.