Life Cycle Management

In mid-December, I saw an article on the Federation of American Scientists' Strategic Security Blog (Germany and B61 Nuclear Bomb Modernization) that I took an interest in. While a study of nuclear weapons and their role in the history of post-World War II Germany is fascinating in its own right, this situation serves as an object lesson in life cycle management.

For the unitiated, life cycle management for an organization involves planning for and scheduling the life cycle tools, particularly equipment, that the organization uses. The example in question is an interesting one, because even when they're maintained, nuclear weapons have a shelf life due not only to the age of the equipment, but also to the half life of their fissile material. At a certain point, older nuclear warheads will decline in potential yield. While I don't believe that depleted uranium is derived from any decommissioned munitions, the concept is similar.

Most organizations don't employ nuclear weapons as tools of their trades, but the concept of life cycle management applies to just about every operation you can think of. The omission of life cycle management from an organization's plans can be problematic - for example, when critical assets suffer catastrophic failures because they've exceeded their design lifetime. When an organization plans for life cycle management, that organization can budget for replacing equipment as well as scheduling replacement for times of low operational tempo. A school, for example, might schedule maintenance of its building for the summer vacation months in order to prevent that maintenance from disrupting instruction.

Some risks are difficult to plan for, but life cycle management shouldn't be one of them. Evaluate your equipment. Evaluate its age, evaluate its criticality, evaluate its cost. Determine what its vulnerabilities are, be it to failure or simple obsolescence owing to its age. Once that's determined, establish a schedule for phased maintenance, refurbishment, disposal, and replacement. Again, this is a quintessential case of applying an ounce of prevention to save yourself from needing a pound of cure.