Department of Defense Acquisitions and Life Cycle Costs There are four types of life cycle costs in the Defense Acquisitions system and each cost is carefully researched and planned into the total life cycle of the military weapon system that is developed by the Department of Defense and industry partners. These costs, defined below, are inclusive of all the costs incurred from the inception of the idea of the system to the date of decommission and destruction, also known as “cradle to grave,” (DAG, n.d.). Life Cycle Costs Research and Development Costs The Research and Development (R&D) costs include the costs from the beginning of the material solution analysis phase (the beginning of the planning phase) through the end of the Engineering …show more content…
This includes any costs associated with producing and deploying the initial hardware, systems engineering and program management, production support elements, military construction, and operations and maintenance dealing with this phase. Production support elements can include the building of new factories or storage facilities to house the system as well as the engineering and manufacture of specialty machines to produce the parts or specialty tools to assemble the finished product. This also includes the cost of shipping the finished product to the customer (DAG, …show more content…
They include the costs to demilitarize and safely dispose of the system in such a manner as to not damage the environment or give away national military secrets. Any electronics, weapons, hazardous materials and wastes must be removed from each system and the remaining system must be decontaminated to ensure that any dangerous materials or residue is removed prior to disposal. The system must be stored and later transported to the disposal site, where it will either be sold as military surplus or crushed and recycled for raw materials. Any profit made in the disposal stage will be credited towards the total cost of the system (DAG,