While much attention is focused on acquisition costs of new defense systems, the real driver of service budgets - Total Ownership Cost (TOC) - gets far less attention. Although much of TOC is determined during the design and development process, TOC impacts do not receive the same scrutiny as acquisition costs. As a result, services must contend with higher long term costs and an accompanying reduction in buying power. Successfully reducing TOC to achieve more capability from tight budgets would be helped by a number of policy and strategy changes; enabling these changes, however, requires providing decision-makers with a better tool set to evaluate the TOC impact of decisions and to assess possible trade-offs. This paper draws from a pilot study conducted for the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to examine the system-level drivers of total ownership cost on Naval platforms. It integrates information from multiple sources and disciplines to create an initial conceptual framework of TOC drivers and to identify key elements, interrelationships and system boundaries. Step-by-step evaluation of the framework reveals a more complete set of TOC impacts. In addition, the framework drives a checklist approach designed to ensure a comprehensive, system-wide assessment of TOC Two use-case examples demonstrate how the framework and checklist can provide a fast, efficient way to consistently assess the impact of potential changes on lifecycle costs and to advance understanding of TOC trade-offs. The paper concludes with recommendations on how to refine this approach for further TOC analyses to support ongoing programs.
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