Page 155 - 2018 Defense White Paper

The commercialization of the military supplies program involves the identif ication of military

supplies that can be replaced with commercial products; the testing of commercial products
from the civilian sector; and the swift purchase and supply of products that meet military
requirement standards. This program is expected to boost the efficiency 36) in military supplies

management by enhancing the quality and performance of supplies, saving on R&D costs, and
securing a large number of sources of supply.
To improve national defense standards, the MND has proactively revised and improved

backward, unreasonable standards created 20 –30 years ago while publishing national defense
standards on the Internet 37) to foster lower entry barriers into the military supplies market. It is
also working on a measure to manage national defense standards in cooperation with the agency

that manages Korean Industrial Standards (KS).

| Force Support System Development | Force support systems 38) are the key element for
ensuring the combat performance of weapons systems and covers most of the military supplies. Chapter 4

Force support systems, however, tend to lag behind in comparison to the advancement of weapons
systems, so the MND has been building a system where outstanding civilian technologies can

be integrated into or “spin on” military supplies, and the military and the civilian sector can
jointly develop or “spin up” technologies that neither of them possesses through cooperation
with industrial, academic, and research institutions. In order to realize this goal, the MND
launched a civil–military technolog ical cooperation program 39) in 2016. Four items, including

the lightweight bulletproof helmet, are under development, and it plans to continue expanding
the program.
In 2017, the Force Support System Research Center was set up within DTAQ to systemically

36) Cost savings of KRW 83.1 billion were achieved through the commercialization of 215 items between 2016 and
2017.
37) Among a total of 21,599 standards, 11,017 (51%) can be disclosed to the public. The MND published 4,143 in
2013, 4,623 by 2014, and 8,961 by 2015, and completed publishing all (11,017) by 2016.
38) It is a term for all military systems except weapon systems, including equipment, materials, general facilities,
resource management, infrastructure software, and others. It was formerly called non-weapon systems until
2012.
39) A project that relevant central administrative agencies jointly carry out to effectively execute the development
and transfer of technologies commonly utilized in the military and the civilian sector, specifications
standardization, and exchange of technological information

Section 5 Systematic Development of Fundamental Warfighting Capabilities 153