NOAA/NCEP is in the midst of a major effort to unify and focus its numerical prediction of weather and broader earth systems within the Unified Forecast System (UFS) framework. One objective of this effort is to streamline significant portions of the current NCEP production suite, which are characterized by a large number of somewhat redundant modeling systems. These “legacy systems” will effectively be consolidated in a relatively small number of community-based UFS modeling applications. The new applications will subsume the forecast-guidance roles currently provided by the legacy systems and deliver functionally equivalent (or better) forecast guidance with fewer modeling systems. A key element in reaping the full benefit of this effort is decommissioning legacy systems in a timely manner after new UFS applications have been demonstrated to perform as well as, or better than, the legacy systems in terms of forecast skill and product delivery. Model retirement (decommissioning) is complicated by numerous factors and often resisted by users. Thus, we have developed an overarching, transparent plan to retire legacy operational modeling systems. Input from stakeholders is being utilized to inform development decisions, ensure that all upstream and downstream dependencies are identified, and develop transition plans for each forecast product. A timeline has been established for consolidating the functionality of operational models in UFS applications. Objective and well-vetted metrics (METplus) are being used to measure progress and determine when equivalence or improvement in prediction skill is achieved, based on comparison with the skill obtained with the current suite of operational products.