MCO 5401.1 governs Marine Corps concept generation and development, including authorities, standards, approval, validation, and implementation.
View MCO 5401.1 on armypubs.army.mil
It defines unofficial and official concepts, operating concepts, functional concepts, CONOPS, CONEMPs, and tentative manuals. It establishes processes for generating, approving, developing, validating, and implementing concepts for force design and capability development.
Applies to: This Order is applicable to the Marine Corps Total Force.
Official concepts are those formally published by the Service to inform force design and capability development actions. (paragraph 2)
The CMC is the approval and validation authority for operating concepts and may delegate that responsibility to the DC CD&I. (paragraph 2)
A concept of operations (CONOPS), when used in the context of force design and development, applies operating concepts against specific scenarios to provide the basis for wargaming, modeling, experimentation, and assessment activities used to refine that operating concept, inform capabilities-based assessment analysis, and ultimately support DOTMLPF-P decisions. (paragraph 2)
Concept development involves all activities associated with critically examining an approved concept to assess its validity. (paragraph 3)
Once a concept is signed and published, it is considered approved for further examination and evaluation for force development and force design. (paragraph 2)