Acquisition System Guidance (formerly the AOF)
Acquisition System Guidance (ASG), formerly the Acquisition Operating Framework (AOF), is the main source of policy and guidance on acquisition for the MOD and industry partners.
Acquisition System Guidance defines how we conduct, govern and control our defence acquisition process. It is a main enabler for improving our delivery to the armed forces and for producing greater value for money for the taxpayer.
How to access the ASG
The ASG is now available via registered access (link is at the bottom of this page). Please complete the registration form to get a log on account. Once you have activated your account you will be able to browse the ASG.
You will be sent an email to activate your account.
If you experience any difficulties in registering or accessing the ASG then contact us via email.
Contents of the ASG
The ASG provides the information, guidance and instruction that set out how the MOD conducts acquisition business. It includes:
-
the Acquisition System Operating Model (ASOM) and Acquisition System Handbook (ASH) set out the principles for acquiring equipment, logistic support and information services
- capability management which includes the defence operating model (DOM), the finance and military capability operating model (FOM), the generic capability management (GCM) model and the capability management practitioners’ guide (CMPG), requirements and acceptance and urgent operational requirements where you’ll find information on capability planning, capability delivery, capability generation, user requirements documents (URD), system requirements documents (SRD), integrated test, evaluation and acceptance and more
- system of systems approach (SOSA) where you’ll find information on the SOSA principles, SOSA operating model and SOSA rulebook
- portfolio, programme and project management (P3M) where you’ll find the MOD’s portfolio, programme and project management guidance/methodologies as well as the MOD project management standard and information on through life management (TLM), through life finance, earned value management, planning and scheduling, assumptions management, risk management, configuration management, performance management and more
- the commercial toolkit where you’ll find guidance on aspects such as contracting methods, contract administration, pricing and tendering as well as an archive of ‘DEFCONs’ and Defence forms ‘(DEFFORMs)’
- logistics where you’ll find the governing policies of the support solutions envelope (SSE), as well as guidance on integrated logistic support (ILS), reliability and maintainability and inventory management
- safety and environmental protection including information on related safety and environmental protection legislation, policies, standards and management and more
- sustainable procurement where you’ll find information on embedding sustainable procurement in the acquisition lifecycle, sustainable defence estate procurement and more
- engineering including systems engineering, lifecycles, design reviews, standardisation and managing quality. You’ll also find sector specific and cross cutting information including maritime, land, air, information systems, communications and human factors integration (HFI)
- defence science and technology, modelling and simulation and technology management where you’ll find guidance on science and technology, technology readiness levels (TRL), system readiness levels (SRL) and more
- planning process
- approvals and scrutiny which includes approvals guidance
Contact details
If you experience any difficulties in registering or accessing the ASG then please email:
Access the ASG
Updates to this page
Published 12 December 2012Last updated 13 May 2015 + show all updates
-
Updated title, summary and changed AOF to ASG.
-
Updated 'Contents of the AOF' section
-
Updated the contents of AOF section.
-
Updated 'Contents of the AOF' and links to the AOF
-
First published.