Logistics challenges with COTS dominated army ATE

The last 30 years has seen the use of Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) components in military systems increase and most recently explode because the “as advertised” benefits of speed to fielding and rapid technology improvements were being realized, however some of the other claimed advantages are less than apparent and there are some challenges to be overcome as the military begins to look at the long term support requirements for COTS systems. This paper focuses on the logistical challenges faced by the Army´s Standard Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) program that is taking advantage of the benefits of utilizing COTS components.