Greetings all! discussion tonight on the parallels between Levitt's concept of the whole product model and the strata that the defense department uses to articulate specific requirements for an acquisition program (read: product). First a little tutorial on the latter: The DoD writes system capability requirements in voluminous detail when they publish a request for proposals (RFP), however, when preparing such a document a few select non-negotiable generally quantitative (read: measurable) performance specifications are listed that are considered essential and critical to the operational effectiveness and suitability of the given system. These are known as key performance parameters (KPPs). Examples for an airborne platform might be maximum speed or turn rate, or perhaps radar cross section. A proposal is generally expected to be able to meet these performance standards or be deemed "non-compliant" and essentially disqualified from competition. A softer standard is found in a second list called key system attributes (KSAs). These may often be qualitative in scope and while important, and can be a discriminating weakness if not incorporated or complied with, they are not generally disqualifying if unmet. KSAs are considered implementers or foundations for meeting the performance requirements. They are frequently also quantitative performance requirements that are not quite as critical as KPPs and are listed as a second tier requirement to allow some trade space in system development. The government may be faced with the reality that achieving 100% of the requirements creates a geometric increase in cost as the desired capability end state is approached. To be sure, failure to meet a KSA requirement is considered a significant weakness in a proposal and should be avoided, but is probably not a showstopper. Finally, DoD procurement standards include a tertiary category called additional attributes (AAs).These are simply just what they sound like: additional capabilities that are desired, and will render a proposal weak if not considered, but again, not disqualifying.
With that quick background let's take a look at how these concepts map into the Levitt whole product model. Levitt identifies his own strata of product capabilities beginning with a base article called the generic product. An analogy can be drawn to the government category of KPPs. If KPPs define the core and non-negotiable product baseline, then we can call that the commercial equivalent generic product. In similar fashion, KSAs map into Levitt's definition of the expected product and AAs, the augmented product. Both of these models can be graphically depicted as concentric circles expanding outward from the core product. Levitt includes as his outermost domain the area called potential product. This is where the government would include their desire for a product to demonstrate growth potential. And we will save an in depth discussion of that category for next week. It not only represents an area for incorporating discriminators, but also an avenue to show viable pathways for follow-on development if initial trade offs were made to get a product into the field with some if not all the desired capability.
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