12/01/19 By: Lilly Chapa for Carling and TTI
Commercial off-the-shelf technology has been an integral part of military systems for more than 30 years, providing the military the ability to adopt cutting-edge technologies at a lower cost and with shorter lead-times.
Using COTS components in military applications has become more common as manufacturers began to regularly provide products designed to meet the same rigorous standards as military-qualified parts. These products are available as standard catalog items for both commercial and military use, and are becoming the go-to solution by OEMs for military-grade applications thanks to their lower cost, availability (off-the-shelf), and reliability.
Traditionally, military components are made on an as-needed basis and tend to be specifically designed to a particular application. These customized products are developed over a long period of time and require a host of agency and government approvals, military specifications, and longevity requirements—all of which can lead to a hefty price tag.
“While the market for military-qualified products has experienced several declines and recessions, there became a need for the same type of robust product at a much better cost and more readily available,” explains Jim Prentiss, regional sales manager at Carling Technologies. “Products designed specifically for the military must maintain extensive files of paperwork submitted for approvals and ongoing testing, which is what you’d largely attribute the high cost of military components. The primary differences between military and COTS parts are the paperwork and the volumes.”
Prentiss notes that manufacturers like Carling Technologies and distributors such as TTI are uniquely positioned to meet the needs of military OEMs by offering COTS products as a cost- effective, reliable solution. Many military-grade COTS solutions are ordered at quantities lower than major manufacturers tend to accept, so distributors can ensure smaller orders can be fulfilled at a low price. Single-vendor sourcing for multiple components that already meet military standards can provide an additional level of cost savings as well, he says.
“Since Carling can build large volumes of a single COTS product, it reduces the cost,” notes Jon Holder, supplier marketing manager at TTI. “On the other hand, if they’re just supplying the military specification version, they may only build 500 a year, making the manufacturing cost much higher because they don’t have that economy of scale.”
Working with knowledgeable manufacturer/distributor partners can also help ensure that contractors are getting the best COTS product for their needs, and enables manufacturers to reach out with new or cutting-edge solutions.
“If a contractor is working on a project, they would reach out to their distribution partners, who would refer them to trusted manufacturers,” Prentiss explains. “We then start a face-to-face conversation, understand their requirements, the application, and work towards helping them make a recommendation. In discussions with military representatives that I have worked on, the customer has selected COTS circuit breakers over the military-specific solutions and it was strictly driven on cost and the perception that the parts were every bit as good as their military counterpart”
Holder notes that TTI often works with manufacturers like Carling Technologies to ensure that the customer has accurate information about potential COTS solutions and can make confident, informed decisions.
“We had a contractor designing for a Navy project, and we presented two COTS technologies that they evaluated,” Holder says. “We brought in the manufacturer, and the contractor’s engineers were able to ask questions about reliability, load data, shock and vibration requirements. TTI will always bring in the manufacturer and let them make commitments as far as the functionality and life of the product.”
Carling Technologies was already poised to meet military needs with their products—the manufacturer was established more than a century ago and has a long history of creating ruggedized products for other harsh-environment applications.
“A lot of COTS products that we sell are akin to some of our core market groups, such as transportation and agriculture,” Prentiss explains. “Carling’s main customer core requires very harsh and robust components, so we design products to meet a wide variety of demanding applications, as well as reliability and longevity expectations. It’s very natural for our development cycle to translate into the military world.”
Carling Technologies designs its COTS products to conform to stringent military requirements, ensuring that its commercial switch and circuit breaker offerings can satisfy commercial and military clients alike.
“Our application mix changes, but our technology remains consistent,” Prentiss says. “Our hydraulic-magnetic circuit breaker, for example, is a niche product that lends itself well to harsh and demanding environments. It’s impervious to ambient temperatures, so if it was used in a tank fighting a battle in Siberia, the electronics would behave the same as if the tank were in Iraq.”
Despite the increase in the adoption of COTS solutions by the military, some contractors will ask for military specification products because that’s what they have always used—and it’s up to the manufacturer to educate the end-user about COTS options. When a contractor came to Carling
Technologies looking to replace a military-grade breaker used in a popular military radio, the COTS solution and cost savings ended up speaking for themselves.
“Once they understood the cost savings of using one of our COTS circuit breakers, the discussion switched towards reliability data, test data, and what test standards we use—that’s where you show the value proposition of a COTS product designed in accordance with military specifications,” Prentiss says. “Contractors don’t take our word blindly—they do their own testing and come up with the same result—so then they see that they’re saving money, it performs just like the military circuit breaker, so why shouldn’t they use it?”
Another perk of COTS products is their shortened development cycle, which allows contractors to adopt cutting-edge technology. Strategic partnerships between established organizations such as Carling Technologies and TTI are integral for ushering in new solutions—TTI works closely with its customers to understand market trends and what the industry will need in the upcoming years, and Carling can provide new solutions to meet those needs.
Prentiss and Holder agree that the future of the internal combustion engine may be short-lived, and the companies are working on a roadmap to understand when and how the military will adopt electric vehicle technology, as well as how Carling Technologies can fill that need—for both military and commercial applications.
Prentiss also points to a larger shift in the military specification product model, where more contractors will work with manufacturers like Carling Technologies to develop customized solutions based on their offerings, without as much concern about the solution being readily available. This concept is known as MOTS—modified off-the-shelf—and Prentiss and Holder believe it will become more commonplace in the coming years.
“There’s this departure of demand for standard products off the shelf, and now we’re seeing that people want a derivative of that standard product,” Prentiss explains. “The main driver is they don’t want to pay for the price of the premium military product—they want what they want, but at a lower cost. People are moving back to the day where everything was a custom application, just through Carling instead of the military.”