Low rate initial production (LRIP) is a term commonly used in

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

weapon A weapon, arm, or armament is any implement or device that is used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime (e.g., murder), law ...

s projects and programs to designate the phase of initial, small-quantity production. The term is also applied in fields other than weapons production, most commonly in non-weapon military equipment programs. With LRIP, the prospective first buyer and operator (i.e., a country's defense authorities and the relevant military units) can thoroughly test the weapons system over some protracted amount of time in order to gain a reasonable degree of confidence as to whether the system actually performs to the agreed-upon requirements before contracts for

mass production Mass production, also known as mass production, series production, series manufacture, or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines ...

are signed. At the same time, manufacturers can use the LRIP as a production test phase in which they develop the

assembly line An assembly line, often called ''progressive assembly'', is a manufacturing process where the unfinished product moves in a direct line from workstation to workstation, with parts added in sequence until the final product is completed. By mechan ...

models that would eventually be used in mass production. Therefore, the LRIP is commonly the first step in transitioning from highly customized, hand-built

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...

s to the final mass-produced end product. In practice, either the production capability or the weapons system itself can be unready during the LRIP phase. This can mean that systems produced during LRIP are built significantly differently both in terms of technique and cost owing to the immaturity of the production line or changes in the weapons system's design, necessitating a large degree of hand assembly and

trial and error Trial and error is a fundamental method of problem-solving characterized by repeated, varied attempts which are continued until success, or until the practicer stops trying. According to W.H. Thorpe, the term was devised by C. Lloyd Morgan ( ...

typically associated with the prototyping stage. Furthermore, the cost of each LRIP system can be much greater than the final mass production unit cost, since the LRIP cost can include both the R&D and setup cost for production, although the goal is for this additional cost to be spread out over future production carried out by the assembly capacity developed during LRIP. Immaturity in a system's design or its method of production discovered during LRIP phase can result in additional LRIP phases to verify corrections and improvements, or project cancellation. The

Congressional Budget Office The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the United States Congress, legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress. I ...

has found that the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...

rarely achieves projected cost savings because too many programs fail to move from LRIP to full-scale production. The Japanese Ministry of Defense similarly lists R&D and initial production as "high-risk phases" in a 2008 report.

References

Military terminology Arms industry Production and manufacturing {{US-mil-stub