MLF 9.2 (March 2015)

Rotorcraft Maintenance O Life Cycle Lessons O Rugged ComputingManaging the Drawdown O Sustainment Savings

The Publication of Record for the Military Logistics Community

Readiness Game Changer

Lt. Gen. Gustave F. PernaU.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4

www.MLF-kmi.com

March 2015Volume 9, Issue 2

U.S. Army AviAtion And miSSile CommAnd And Peo AviAtion

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Lieutenant GeneraL Gustave F. Perna

U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4

16

Departments Industry Interview2 editor’s PersPective4 LoG oPs14 suPPLy chain26 White PaPer Forum27 resource center

chris hickeyVice President of Sustainment & Support SolutionsElbit Systems of America

March 2015Volume 9, Issue 2MILITARY LOGISTICS FORUM

28

10sustaininG For the FutureSeventy percent of the life cycle costs of military equipment come during the sustainment phase.By Peter BuxBaum

21manaGinG the draWdoWnThe Push—U.S. military retrograde from Afghanistan, Phase 1.By C. todd LoPez

24hardenedWhat are the standards for rugged computer designs, and can they be improved?By Karen e. thuermer

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u.s. army aviation and missiLe LiFe cycLe manaGement command and Peo aviationsPeciaL PuLL-out suPPLement

5keePinG rotorcraFt Fit and reLevantWork at Army depots is essential to cost control and operational readiness.By henry Canaday

U.S. Army AviAtion And miSSile life CyCle mAnAgement CommAndCommander Major General James Richardson, and Deputy Commander Mary C. Dickens

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Special Section

1

For fiscal year 2014, the Department of Defense requested $168 billion to develop, test and acquire weapon systems and associated subsystems. Major defense acquisition programs and acquisition category (ACAT) I programs accounted for about 40 percent of that total. ACAT II and III programs, along with other projects and investments, accounted for the remaining 60 percent.

In general, for a program to be classified as ACAT I, it usually must require a total research, development and test and evaluation (RDT&E) budget of more than $480 million or be designated so by the milestone decision authority (MDA). ACAT II would have RDT&E investments of more than $185 million and/or MDA designation. ACAT III programs are mainly all other programs that do not meet ACAT I or II designation.

Because of relatively lower funding levels, ACAT II and III programs encompass a wide range of efforts and program sizes. Programs may range from an ACAT II program with a total acquisition cost of more than $3 billion to an ACAT III program with an acquisition cost in the millions of dollars or lower. There is not a currently established minimum funding level to be included in ACAT III programs.

Representatives Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.), respectively the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, requested the Government Accountability Office (GAO) review the performance, reporting and cost controls of the DoD’s ACAT II and III programs.

The conclusion of the GAO’s review is that while weapon system acquisition is one of the largest areas of DoD discretionary spending, that spending is not very well understood. The issue is systemic and across all of the services—including Special Operations Command—and the DoD.

Overall, the DoD “partially concurred” with the GAO’s recommendations. However, the GAO seemed unclear as to what actions would be taken to address the issues raised during the review.

Turning away from challenges of budgets and accountability to the munitions supply chain, the combined air efforts against ISIL in Syria and Iraq required a significant widening of the supply chain pipes into the region to support both U.S. and coalition forces.

In January 2015, there were a reported 2,308 weapon releases as reported by the combined forces air component commander. Additionally, there were 740 airlift sorties carrying 3,700 passengers and 6,300 tons of cargo. Tanker sorties numbered 1,122, offloading about 81 million pounds of fuel during 7,635 refuelings.

The air activity trend is continuing upward. August 2014 saw the first 211 sorties. December ended with 1,867 air attack sorties being flown.

The supply chain that was initially put into place, and the one that it evolved into today, is allowing U.S. and coalition forces to keep the pressure on ISIL when and where needed.

Logisticians are making it happen.

Publication of Record for the Military Logistics Community

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Military Logistics Forum

Volume 9, Issue 2 • March 2015

EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

Jeff McKaughaneditor

Transforming defense supply and logisticsrequires a new perspective.

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Compiled by KMI Media Group staffLOG OPS

Major General Warren D. Berry, director, Logistics, Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill., has been assigned as director, Logistics, Headquarters Air Combat Command, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.

Brigadier General (select) Stacey T. Hawkins, commander, Tenth Air Base Wing, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo., has been assigned as

director, Logistics, Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Air Force Brigadier General Brian E. Dominguez has been nominated for appointment to the rank of major general. Dominguez is currently serving as the mobili-zation assistant to the commander, Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Air Force Brigadier General Kathryn J. Johnson has been nominated for appointment to the rank of major general. Johnson is currently serving as the director of logistics, Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Installations and Mission Support, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

Northrop Grumman Corporation has named Steve Hogan vice presi-dent, global sustainment and John Parker vice president and general

manager, Integrated Logistics and Modernization division for the company’s Technical Services sector.

Rear Admiral (lower half) Paul J. Verrastro will be assigned as commander, Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support, Philadelphia, Pa. Verrastro is currently serving as director, Logistics Programs and Operations Division, N41, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

Compiled by KMI Media Group staffPEOPLE

Maj. Gen. Warren D. Berry

Brig. Gen. Brian E. Dominguez

Brig. Gen. Kathryn J. Johnson

Rear Adm. (lower half) Paul J. Verrastro

The Army Contracting Command - Redstone (ACC Redstone), has issued a request for proposal (RFP) to provide quality U.S. Army avia-tion field and sustainment level maintenance. The effort will encom-pass reset, installation of modification work orders (MWO), logistics support, and other maintenance support within the Regional Aviation Sustainment Management-Central (RASM-C) area of operation.

The contract is in support of the Army Aviation and Missile Command’s Logistics Center Field Support and Readiness Directorate requirement for the Army’s rotary wing aircraft maintenance program within RASM-C.

The primary maintenance support facility for RASM-C is located at Fort Campbell, Ky. The RASM-C area of responsibility includes the following geographic areas: Alabama, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, Wisconsin and Louisiana.

Examples of activities performed at Fort Campbell include: army aviation field and sustainment level reset and unit maintenance; avia-tion unit maintenance/aviation intermediate maintenance support; installation aviation supply support, aircraft ground support equip-ment maintenance and installation of MWOs. Modifications may be applied in conjunction with reset and stand alone. The contractor will support the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade at Campbell Army Airfield.

Raytheon Company has been awarded a $35 million sole-source contract by the U.S. Air Force to provide aircraft integration and life cycle technical support on an advanced bomb carriage and release system for aircraft. The advanced system will allow both the Air Force and U.S. Navy to perform more missions utilizing less aircraft.

“JMM BRU end users now have a next evolution system that can be inte-grated with more than 11 different platforms,” said Todd Probert, vice president for the mission support and modernization at Raytheon

Intelligence, Information and Services. “Our strength in engineering and design allowed us to offer the customer a system with improved combat turn-around time, enhanced system performance and improved warfighter readi-ness.”

The joint miniature munitions bomb rack unit indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract began October 2014 and has an eight-year period of performance. In addition to being awarded the IDIQ contract, Raytheon has also received its first delivery order.

Regional Aviation Sustainment Management

Life Cycle Technical Support Contract

www.MLF-kmi.com4 | MLF 9.2

Army aviation assets, especially rotor-craft, have done hard duty in the last decade, and they must stay fit to fight for decades to come. That means plenty of maintenance, resets, modifications and always the pos-sibility of field support in harsh environ-ments. However, money is very tight, and all this must be accomplished as efficiently as possible.

There is no end of challenges in sustain-ing Army aviation assets. Government and industry are looking for new methods at every support level.

The Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD) handles maintenance on the UH-60 Black Hawk, AH-64 Apache, CH-47 Chinook, HH-60 Pave Hawk and OH-58 Kiowa War-rior.

The depot plans, coordinates and exe-cutes recapitalization, reset or repair of these major helicopter platforms for the Army, Defense Department and other U.S. and foreign customers. This work on rotor-craft platforms accounts for 30 percent of the depot revenue.

The majority of depot revenue, 63 per-cent, comes from repair of components. Here again, Corpus Christi plans, coor-dinates and executes the work. Repaired components include hydraulic, mechanical, electrical, avionics, instruments, bearings, rotor systems, rotary wings, rotor heads and rotor controls.

Partnerships with private industry and original equipment manufacturers are important; partners include Boeing Aero-space Support, General Electric Aircraft Engines, Honeywell International Corpo-ration and Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. The depot works under four Technical,

Engineering and Logistical Services and Supplies (TELSS) OEM contracts to ensure quality support to its customers. The private partners rely on the depot for unique capa-bilities and shared efficiencies.

The largest change now on the horizon for the depot is deployment of the Complex Assembly Manufacturing Solution (CAMS), the next step in its Logistics Management Program (LMP). In fiscal year 2014, the depot continued to implement LMP, a robust business software suite designed by SAP for the Army and first deployed at the depot in May 2009. Since then, LMP has integrated planning, manufacturing, supply chain management, inventory management, finance and human resources.

During 2014, the depot prepared for LMP Increment 2, an expansion of the currently deployed system, to address the latest needs of Army Materiel Command. For the depot, this second increment of LMP includes deployment of CAMS, which will provide an automated shop floor solution so employees can exploit LMP to its full potential.

CAMS deployment will significantly reduce the number of production systems used on the depot’s shop floor. All shop floor staff will work in one system, which will be

integrated with the current LMP and provide visibility over the entire life cycle of an asset. Among many benefits, CAMS will stream-line processes and eliminate many manual processes, greatly reducing inaccuracies in paperwork due to human errors.

Exploiting public-private partnerships is one example of how the depot makes the best use of limited resources in the organic and defense industrial base. The depot benefits from its TELSS partnerships with private-sector partners. It can tap the resources of OEMs to quickly solve com-plex problems. Implementing CAMS on the shop floor is one very good example of syn-ergy between government and industry. The future success of the depot and the Army’s organic support will require both existing and additional partnerships.

Private companies have also been very active.

Sikorsky supports Black Hawks with overhaul and repair services, working with Corpus Christi since 2003, noted David Zack, vice president for government/defense systems and services. “We have partnered to execute upgrades that deliver significant savings, updating older models rather than purchasing new aircraft.”

By Henry Canaday, MLF Correspondent

Work at arMy depots is essentiaL to Cost ControL and operationaL readiness.

Special Section

www.MLF-kmi.com MLF 9.2 | 5

Sikorsky would like to expand its services to include training, technical publications, warehousing, freight forwarding and field service, and deliver more savings by oper-ating under a performance-based logistics (PBL) model. Zack emphasizes his com-pany’s engineering and technical expertise on Black Hawks and proven PBL success. Its H-53K PBL won a 2014 Secretary of Defense Award for increasing supply availability by 49 percent while reducing costs by over $20 million. Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin’s joint venture company—the Maritime Heli-copter Support Company—won a Best PBL Implementation Defense Logistics Award, delivering a total of $25 million in savings.

Applying Seahawk PBL lessons to Black Hawks would reduce sustainment costs 10 percent. Sikorsky’s H-60 PBL improved com-ponent fill rates, backorders, part availability and reliability. Zack argues the PBL approach would help Army Aviation and Missile Com-mand achieve $130 million in spares-cost reductions. The company could also play a larger role in obsolescence management, reliability engineering, product improve-ments and process improvements. Sikorsky is exploring use of condition-based mainte-nance data to forecast to maintenance issues rather than react to them.

Craig Madden is president and Jerry Wheeler vice president of a joint venture by Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney, the Advanced Turbine Engine Company (ATEC). ATEC was established to develop a new engine for the Army’s Black Hawks and Apaches as part of the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP).

The partners have been working on the science and technology phase of ITEP since 2008 and have just finished their final report. The major goals of ITEP are to increase engine power to 3,000 shaft horsepower, up 50 percent from the current engines, while reducing specific fuel consumption by at least 20 percent, and 25 percent if possible. The Army would also like to increase engine life by 20 percent and significantly reduce operation and support costs. Moreover, all this is to be achieved by a new engine that can be dropped into the rotorcraft with minimal other changes.

Wheeler said ITEP is funded and a very high modernization priority for the Army. The Army expects to select two companies for preliminary design work in spring of 2016 and pick one

for production in spring of 2018. Low-rate initial production could begin in 2024 and full-rate production in 2024. With spares, the Army would require about 6,000 new engines for the Apache and Blackhawk, and other services and nations would likely up that total.

Madden said Honeywell & Pratt can exploit their condition-based maintenance capabilities to get maintenance costs down. ATEC has demonstrated ITEP’s main power and fuel-saving goals are achievable, Wheeler said. “The hardest part is meeting specific fuel requirements with the same size engine.” So ATEC proposed a different architecture with a two-spool gas generator. It also used advances in design tools to achieve a “big jump” in the aerodynamics of engine com-ponents, Wheeler said.

Lockheed Martin provides a comprehen-sive supply chain solution for the Apache sensors’ modernized target acquisition designation sight/pilot night vision sensor (MTADS/PNVS) program. Partnering with the Army enables outstanding system-mis-sion readiness, improves maintainability and reliability and reduces sustainment costs using innovative supply chain concepts, said Lou Kratz, vice president of logistics and sustainment.

Lockheed also leads maintenance cen-tral operations for Army regional aviation sustainment at Fort Campbell, Ky. The Lock-heed contract includes repair, reset, modi-fication and additional sustainment efforts required for the Apache, Black Hawk, Chi-nook and Kiowa Warrior.

The Program Executive Office (PEO) for Special Operations Forces Support Activity, located at Bluegrass Station in Lexington, Ky., is responsible for Special Operations Command’s largest contract, which provides a range of contractor logistics support (CLS) for special operations forces and other warf-ighters worldwide. As a CLS prime contrac-tor, Lockheed provides a full range of logistic

services and executes sustainment and life cycle management from design to disposal.

Lockheed also supports PEO Aviation’s non-standard aircraft programs, including the Mi-17 and Mi-35 Russian helicopters, the AH-6, MD-530 and MD-500 light helicopters and the Bell-200 and 400, with global CLS, supply chain management and training.

Kratz said Lockheed works under the full spectrum of contract types. The Army initiated a PBL contract for M-TADS/PNVS in 2007, which is ongoing. This PBL enables a supply availability rate of more than 95 percent through supply chain efficiencies, depot support, infrastructure, spare planning, procurement, repairs, maintenance, modifi-cations and inventory management.

Kratz said Lockheed focuses on an inte-grated life cycle framework, built on its tech-nical strengths, to provide capability at lowest cost. Kratz estimates that Lockheed has deliv-ered more than $3 billion in savings to U.S. forces though PBL contracts.

Lockheed also delivered the first mod-ernized day sensor assembly (M-DSA) for Apaches, an upgrade that will enhance perfor-mance, reliability and maintainability while eliminating obsolescence issues with older sensors.

James Myles commanded the Aviation and Missile Command and Army Test and Evaluation Command, was assistant com-mander of the 1st Air Cavalry and now leads aviation work at Dyncorp International, which touches more helicopters every day than any other company, Myles said.

Dyncorp touches Army rotorcraft at Forts Bliss, Hood, Riley and Sill in the western United States and overseas in Germany and southwest Asia, including Afghanistan. It also supports the 160th Special Operations Avia-tion Regiment (Airborne). It provides inter-mediate and unit-level maintenance, both scheduled and unscheduled, along with back shops in southwest Asia. In the United States, Dyncorp provides overflow maintenance

capacity and performs resets, detailed inspections and repairs of helicopters returned from theater.

Myles said his company works on all Army rotorcraft, including Chi-nooks, Apaches, Black Hawks and AH-6M Little Birds.

There has been no decline in work yet, but some decrease is expected in future years as budgets decline. But Myles said the future is unpredict-able and needs may change. Dyncorp

James mylesJerry Wheeler

Special Section


The Spirit of Innovation®

SUPPORTING THE MISSION THROUGH LOGISTICS.

At Elbit Systems of America, our contractor logistic support team, M7 Aerospace, works hard to keep Army Aviators in the air. With a proven history of providing exception levels of mission readiness through logistic support and affordable solutions, M7 capabilities include managing field and depot maintenance services while continuing fully supported main base operations. Our process driven service provides aircraft maintenance, modification, and engineering support tailored to meet the unique mission requirements of aviator, so they can successfully fulfill their mission.

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is very good at recruiting large numbers of qualified mechanics and deploying them abroad quickly. “If they need it now, we can be there at a moment’s notice.”

Northrop Grumman provides a variety of logistics sustainment, modernization and training support for U.S. forces and allies, noted Frank Simpkins, director of Northrop Grumman Technical Services. “We are embedded with customers so we understand the problems impacting their mission and can provide solutions in real time,” Simpkins stressed. “Another benefit to our customers is our deep reach-back across the whole com-pany to deliver the right capability at the right time, including a modernization roadmap to keep platforms and systems relevant.”

Simpkins expected Army aviation mainte-nance over the next five years to depend partly on Army budgets. “There will not be enough dollars to continue to support Army aviation and aviation maintenance at the levels that have been in the past. That is a challenge but also presents a great opportunity for our customers and industry to work together to incorporate more innovation and newer technologies to make it more cost-efficient.”

Simpkins believed Army aviation can benefit from Northrop’s total-support solu-tions. “As the Army budget is further con-strained, the acceptance of new, innovative solutions will grow. There is a great oppor-tunity for the Army to explore more integrated solutions across maintenance, opera-tions and training, which would provide much greater efficiencies and cost savings.” Separate contracts for each of these functions do not permit optimal efficiencies.

Columbia Helicopters started supporting Army avia-tion with a 2006 program to overhaul dynamic compo-nents of the CH-47 for training at Fort Rucker, explained Scott Ellis, director of business development. Components over-hauled included drive shafts, transmissions and rotor heads.

At present, Columbia resets, refurbishes and repairs major and minor components for Chinooks under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. The company now has three Chinooks in its shops for the first FMS customer, and Ellis said he and the U.S. government are both hoping for more FMS transactions.

In 2014, Columbia also won an indefi-nite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) con-tract from the Army for overhaul of fore and aft rotor heads on the Chinook. “This is a big contract for a small company like us,” Ellis noted.

The work comes Columbia’s way partly because it owns and operates the Columbia Model 234 Chinook and Columbia Vertol 107-II, commercial versions of the CH-47 Chinook and CH-46 Sea Knight. “We are by

far the largest commercial operator in the world of Chi-nooks,” Ellis noted.

The IDIQ deal could mean up to $30 million in work for the company, and Columbia would like to do even more. “Two-thirds of our employees are ex-mil-itary, and we like to serve even if we are not in uni-form,” Ellis said.

Elbit Systems of Amer-ica supports Army’s C-26 Metroliners and upgrades of Marine Corps AH-1 Cobras and has supported a variety of other Army platforms.

Elbit has maintenance facilities in San Antonio, Texas, and component-repair facili-ties in Talladega, Ala.; Fort Worth, Texas; Merrimack, N.H.; and Boca Raton, Fla. Its San Antonio hangars are Elbit’s centers for aircraft modifications and upgrades, noted Chris Hickey, vice president, sustainment and support solutions. The company offers “cost-effective, nose-to-tail platform sustainment

and upgrade solutions to ensure capabilities match mission objectives,” Hickey said.

Elbit works closely with customers, develops unique technical solutions and offers support before issues arise. For example, its San Antonio facility has con-sistently given the government an aircraft availability rate of 95 percent even while supporting many aircraft types, models and series. With 45 years of experience as an OEM, Elbit has delivered high opera-tional readiness in some very harsh envi-ronments, winning the Joseph P. Cribbins Award for exceptional operational service to warfighters twice in the last five years.

Elbit continually invests in life cycle enhancement and CLS tools, Hickey said. One example is its state-of-the-art enter-prise resource planning system that allows solutions to be deployed rapidly with the right data at the right place and time. This ERP enables Army program offices to make critical decisions for global fleets. Elbit also invests in its aircraft facilities to ensure they have the most sophisticated equipment.

Elbit expects to expand its participa-tion in sustainment of Army aviation in fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft as well as unmanned systems. It has the in-house engineering to develop supplemental type certificates for modifications and upgrades, all while performing CLS tasks.

Inventory Locator Service provides vis-ibility of spare parts to Army aviation maintenance, logistics and supply chain management, and ILS is an integral factor

Frank Simpkins

Special Section

New innovations to the maintenance and life cycle support of weapon systems can save money and enhance readiness. [Photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman]


to mission success, said John Angelbeck, senior manager for ILS Defense.

The company provides a subscription-based electronic marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers of aviation parts, components and services. It helps manage obsolescence and long lead times, reducing equipment downtime and increasing mission readiness.

ILS offers access to inventories of over 4,000 suppliers and provides market-intel-ligence data on supply, demand and price trends over time. Visibility of logistics data includes part numbers, national stock num-bers, procurement history and many other integrated files.

Angelbeck stressed ILS’s experience since 1979 and strength as a Boeing subsidiary since 2006. A website with more suppliers than any other commercial offering, a world-wide sales force and experienced customer service staff round out ILS’s assets. “When three or more sources are needed to support a purchasing decision, ILS is the most reliable tool for procurement.”

ILS market-intelligence reports are used by aviation OEMs, maintenance companies and operators. Angelbeck predicted Army aviation will use market-intelligence trends to improve planning and budgeting, result-ing in significant savings. The company acts on ideas offered by Army and other defense customers. “With continued growth in Army depot maintenance, we expect thoughtful customer contributions to be implemented.”

As ILS’s relationship with Army Material Command and Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command grows, Angelbeck foresees substantial increases in inventories for Army assets. The company will help the Army find spare parts quickly, while assisting suppliers in accessing the aviation market.

Fluor does not directly support Army aircraft, but it can do a lot to support the supporters, especially where warfighters need support most, in primitive and harsh overseas environments. Tom Crowder, executive direc-tor for new business in contingency opera-tions, said, “We manage storage supplies, inventory, and warehousing activities for war reserves and pre-positioned stocks. And we provide maintenance for facilities, infrastruc-ture, weapons and vehicles.”

To do this, Fluor has developed its global supply chain infrastructure and logistics expertise, a “special operational strength” according to Crowder. It can thus provide critical life support [such as fuel, water and

power] in remote areas. Fluor is adept at working in “nasty places,” jungles and des-erts, Crowder stresses. “We also provide all types of food services, field dining and MREs [meals ready to eat].” For aviation, Fluor can supply transportation and logistics, airfield operations and air traffic control.

Fluor has operations all over the world and can respond to needs wherever they arise. It is currently supporting operations across the Middle East, southwest Asia and West Africa and is positioned to provide similar support in southeast Asia and the Pacific. “Whether the United States. or its allies deploy 25 or 500 troops, we can go in first, conduct contingency construction, put up tents, showers, latrines, water supplies, wash basins, ice, fuel and maintenance for vehicles and facilities,” Crowder summarized. Fluor plans to continue to grow its support opera-tions, including aircraft maintenance.

L-3 Logistics Solutions supports Army fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, including sus-tainment operations for fixed-wing aviation and life cycle contractor support (LCCS) for C-12, RC-12 and UC-35 aircraft based on Hawker Beechcraft King Air 200s and 300s and Cessna Citation 560s.

Lowell Green, vice president of Army fleet support, said C-12/RC-12/UC-35 LCCS capabilities include maintenance, repair and overhaul, modifications, upgrades and mod-ernization.

L-3’s Sustainment Operations, RASM-East, are done at Fort Drum, Fort Bragg and Hunter Army Airfield. They include, but are not limited to, reset of aircraft following

deployments supporting combat. RASM-E staff install modifications and provide main-tenance support to active and reserve combat aviation brigades and other units throughout the eastern region. All three RASM-E sites are AS 9110 certified.

Since 2003, L-3 Army Fleet Support (AFS) has provided maintenance and logis-tics support to the Army Aviation Center of Excellence and United States Air Force at Fort Rucker. L-3 provides personnel, man-agement, material parts, supplies, transpor-tation and equipment for unit, intermediate and approved depot maintenance for flight training on rotary-wing aircraft.

AFS has won many Army Supply Excel-lence awards, and LEAN/Six Sigma practices provide continuous improvement. Logis-tic managers forecast and manage supply requirements to provide safe and reliable helicopters to train Army and Air Force aviators.

Green stressed that AFS is certified ISO 14 001: 2004 and AS9110: 2012 and main-tains a highly experienced, trained and dedi-cated workforce. AFS focuses on constraints to set improvement priorities. “L-3 has a large base of skilled employees with many years of experience and a solid reputation. The company can support any air or ground system that the military needs maintained,” he said. O

For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan at [email protected] or search our online archives for related stories

at www.mlf-kmi.com.

Forward-deployed maintenance is an extension of the work performed in depots. [Photo courtesy of DoD]


Improving the sustainment of military platforms and systems has been an important goal of DoD for some time. Sustainment, as much as any other process, ensures the affordability and availability of military hardware. Improving sustainment reduces the life cycle costs of platforms and systems in terms of time, labor, parts, mainte-nance, transportation, training, facilities and fuel requirements while increasing operational availability and force agility.

One of the keys to reducing sustainment costs and improving availability is analyzing programs costs from a life cycle perspective. Seventy percent of the life cycle costs of military equipment come during the sustainment phase. Taking the long view means considering sus-tainment as early as the acquisition and design stages of a platform on the theory that the earlier sustain-ability decisions are made in the development process, the lower the overall program costs. Such an approach was mandated in legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president in 2009. That approach is now yielding a sufficient level of data and experience to start delivering the desired results.

Considering sustainment earlier on in the process results in higher costs at the front end of systems acquisitions. Since DoD is constrained in its spending from one congressional appropriation to the next, it is difficult to make the case for increased spending in year one for savings that are not likely to appear until year five or 10. Increased technology investments in military depots could also reduce long-run costs, but funds for those investments are hard to come by in an environment in which the military is drawing down after protracted conflicts in southwest Asia and in which Congress refuses to agree to cuts that the Pentagon itself is proposing—whose savings could be plowed into sustainment—because they are not politi-cally expedient.

All of the above represents the difficult macro-level view of the issues surrounding the trade-offs involved in developing better sustainment programs. At the micro level, there are examples of specific pro-grams and contracts in which the U.S. military and its industry partners have implemented sustainment changes which have reduced costs and increased availability for those specific contracts and systems by taking a bigger picture approach to sustainment than

has been traditional. Some of these changes have involved adapting commercial best practices to the military sustainment environment.

“Ever since the passage of the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act in 2009, there has been a strong emphasis on affordabil-ity,” said David Berteau, the assistant secretary of defense for logistics and materiel readiness. “WSARA mandated putting a cap on program spending and doing a better job of estimating life cycle costs. After six years of doing this, we are starting to see some benefits in that

the amount expected for sustainment costs is being matched by the amount actually being spent.”

Berteau and his team oversee sustainment from the perspective of three interrelated dynamics: policy, funding and outcomes. “Dollars drive policy more than policy drives resources,” said Berteau. “It’s what you’re spending in terms of people, money and time that says what your priorities are. Resources have to be spent to capture outcomes, and outcomes are what the system actually delivers.”

“Improved sustainment begins with a partnership between our customers, the entire defense industrial base and our congressional representatives to take a longer view in how we are designing, manufactur-ing and sustaining hundreds of military platforms, systems and subsystems,” said Cathie Gridley, sector vice president for business development at Northrop Grumman Technical Systems. “Oftentimes, these sys-tems are fielded for far longer than originally intended by engineers and the customers. Military equipment operating past its expected lifetime is a significant risk for increased sustainment costs. Obsolescence and outdated processes can cause sustainment challenges as programs carry on in the future.”

Improvement in sustainment includes three key elements, according to Lou Kratz, vice president for logistics and sustainment at Lockheed Martin Cor-poration. “First is a life cycle view of the platform; second is improvement in logistics processes,” he said, “and third is a business model that incentivizes equipment availability and cost reduction as opposed to a transactional model that incentivizes failure and high costs. Paying by the drink incentivizes industry to maximize costs and provides no real incentive other than to deliver what the contract asks for, which may or may not enhance the overall availability of a system.

david Berteau

lou Kratz

Cathie Gridley

By peter BuxBauM, MLF Correspondent

seventy perCent oF tHe LiFe CyCLe Costs oF MiLitary equipMent CoMe during tHe sustainMent pHase.

10 | MLF 9.2 www.MLF-kmi.com

Performance-based contracts provide the appropriate incentives for industry to drive costs down.”

Program managers for older legacy platforms such as aircraft are dealing with equipment and technology which were first fielded in the 1970s. “Sustainment was built on old component-focused maintenance methodologies which boil down to fly to fail,” said Tom Beil, site operations director for Inter-graph Government Solutions at Warner Robins Air Force Base. “The commercial world has understood that there are better ways to build scheduled mainte-nance programs.”

Reforming sustainment approaches is different for new plat-forms, as opposed to legacy ones, Berteau acknowledged. “It takes a long times to change the overall sustainment picture from the front end,” he said. “It takes decades for systems to get designed, developed, produced and fielded in such large quantities necessary to drive overall sustainment costs. The process for systems already fielded is less centralized and less rigorous. They are not going to milestone reviews, as is the process for acquisition decisions.”

But total cost of ownership is also a challenging factor to assess for systems not currently fielded, noted Gridley. “More incorpora-tion of sustainment engineering at the beginning of the acquisition phase of a system, platform, subsystem or component is a good place to start,” she said. “Creating that long-term roadmap allows you to build into the entire support system the sustainment, supply

chain management, and training and modernization roadmap that can be properly funded over a long-term basis.”

There are, however, added costs to front-loading the sustainment planning process. “The Army might decide to limit the number of common tools required to provide field-level repair of a system,” said Tom Edwards, a senior account manager at Leidos. “That decision will cause the developer to work downstream with suppliers to assure that all line replaceable units use common, specified fasteners. To the degree that commercial components are used, there will be costs

to suppliers to produce unique variants. But the payoff on the battle-field is significant, in the form of fewer tools carried by mechanics, higher likelihood of having the tool required for the task, greater tool redundancy among mechanics, fewer tools to be produced and sus-tained, and fewer different types of fasteners to be produced, procured, supplied and delivered.”

Government and industry ought to make the intellectual and financial investments necessary to bring about more effective sus-tainment processes, Edwards added. “Government must invest the intellectual talent and analytical resources necessary to identify, vet, evaluate and justify demanding requirements for sustainability as well as system performance, especially where the government seeks a performance-based contract,” he said. “Government and industry should invest in modeling, simulation, engineering and test resources

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necessary to assure that requirements are met during system devel-opment. Modeling and simulation are not panaceas but frequently provide insights at low cost.”

In Kratz’s experience, pushing up sustainment issues to the design and early production phases is not a huge cost driver, but can produce some significant savings. “We have seen increases of 2 to 3 percent in development costs and minor increases in the costs of low rate initial production because we are feeding back to sustainment so that we can optimize that process,” he said.

Lockheed Martin, in partnership with the Stevens Institute of Technology, developed the Systems Design and Operational Effective-ness (SDOE) model meant to address sustainment processes and systems during the design phase of a program. “This allows us to think about trade-offs between equipment performance and reliability and the inherent design and sustainment of the system on a broader scale,” said Kratz. “The primary objective is that sustainment design is tuned to provide availability at the least cost and drives improved design that ultimately reduces the sustainment costs to the platform.”

During Lockheed Martin’s early work in the design of the F-35, four of the eight critical performance parameters were related to logistics and sustainment. “We were involved in the simultaneous design of the air vehicle and the support system,” said Kratz. “This early experience allowed us to fine tune the design of the aircraft and its sustainment systems, which will allow the aircraft to achieve what its user wants from both a performance and a cost perspective.”

The government deserves much of the credit for implementing logistics process improvement along with industry, according to Kratz. “The government has worked with industry to implement lean processes in military depots and elsewhere,” he said. “The Ogden Air Logistics Complex at Hill Air Force Base dramatically reduced turn-around times on the F-22 line that we support. This resulted in huge improvements in aircraft availability and, consequently, costs.”

Similarly, the Defense Logistics Agency has been a leader driving reductions in procurement and lead times for spare parts. “The DLA has worked with industry to improve demand forecasts,” said Kratz. “This has better enabled them to buy the right equipment at reason-able costs in advance and to reduce inventory.”

This is also an increasing opportunity for DoD to learn from sus-tainment schemes implemented by commercial companies. “Industry has reduced life cycle costs with up-front investments in technology, process changes and taking new approaches to supply chain manage-ment,” said Berteau.

One area in which government can learn from industry is in the development of scheduled maintenance programs. “The old legacy programs tend to be component-based,” said Beil. “They look at the failure of individual parts and focus repairs on individual failures. The commercial world has been using the model of Maintenance Steering Group 3 since 1980.”

Maintenance Steering Group 3, or MSG-3, is a decision process used to determine what actions need to be accomplished to ensure the availability of physical assets when needed by the user. MSG-3 is based on historical, empirical data, which is why the methodology has proven successful on aged aircraft where there is a wealth of available knowledge and technical data.

“This is a worldwide methodology used by all commercial air carriers that is very systems-oriented,” said Beil. “Instead of looking at an actuator on a flap, it looks at the overall health of the flight control system. It is a commercial best practice, and the end result is to ensure the safety of the aircraft and to maximize reliability and availability and minimize maintenance costs.”

Intergraph Government Solutions was in charge of implementing MSG-3 on the C-5 Galaxy Jumbo Airlifter. “Since 2009, that imple-mentation has resulted in improvements in availability of 40 percent and reliability of 28 percent,” said Beil. “Mechanical efficiency was boosted 20 percent, maintenance costs were cut by 30 percent, and maintenance flow days were cut by 20 percent. Unscheduled parts demands were reduced by 10 percent. According to Air Force data, MSG-3 is saving the Air Force $2 million per aircraft per year. When you multiply that number across the fleet, that represents significant savings.”

IGS offers standardized processes and software for implementing MSG-3. “The software cleanses and analyzes aircraft maintenance data to develop reliable data from which to perform root cause analy-ses and documents all MSG-3 details supporting the development

As they focus on minimizing the life cycle costs of platforms and systems, one of the more promising targets for military managers is equipment corrosion, which represents the largest avoidable cost—$23 billion a year—to DoD.

The problem is an age-old enemy of the Navy, since moisture is the most sig-nificant driver of environmental corrosion. But it also affects the full range of military operations, which rely on huge stocks of bulky, expensive equipment that would be cost-prohibitive to store inside fixed structures.

Fortunately, advances in protective technology are offering significant returns on investment by reducing environmental degradation, thus leading to reduced costs for maintenance and replacement parts.

One prominent player in protective sys-tems is Shield Technologies Corporation (STC), which offers a range of products called Envelop Protective Covers. Developed with the help of a Navy small business inno-vation grant about a decade ago, the prod-ucts are deployed throughout the Navy, as well as in many parts of the other services. The Army recently acquired the covers for its stock of howitzers, for example.

“It’s the only 100 percent waterproof but breathable cover that incorporates a vapor corrosion inhibitor to actively fight corro-sion. That’s really what makes us unique,” explained Mike Dupasquier, STC’s chief operating officer.

“The military has done various stud-ies, and those have shown that Envelop will reduce environmental degradation and

corrosion by 95 percent compared to pre-vious maintenance methods, which vary from covers to plain tarps and other things. Our product protects from moisture, water intrusion, UV, sand, heat, impact and cor-rosion, which was specifically why it was developed,” he continued.

The cost of the covers represents pen-nies to the dollar compared to repair costs that otherwise would be needed, Dupas-quier added. “The return on investment for the howitzer product was fully four to one. This is just the cost of one cover, but doesn’t include the lifespan over the entire life of the system, since presumably the military will have it longer than just one cover. If you factor in savings from extend-ing equipment life, you’re talking 250 or 300 to one.”

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of technical data and establishing effective life cycle sustainment processes.”

Leidos’ National Security Sector is involved in sustainment improvement activities across the acquisition life cycle. For example, Leidos worked as the joint logistics integrator for the Joint Pro-gram Office MRAP (mine resistant ambush protected vehicle). “We conducted extensive analysis throughout identifying sustainability improvements in supply chain, configuration management, transpor-tation, training, reliability and protection for a fleet of 26,000 vehicles produced by seven different manufacturers,” said Edwards. “Leidos uses advanced information management techniques to rapidly col-lect, cleanse and process logistics relevant data into sustainability improvement insights.”

MRAP development and sustainment systems benefited from insights gained earlier from the development of the Marine Corps’ light amphibious vehicle and the Army’s Stryker. “Although MRAPs were produced in an extremely compressed acquisition cycle, they benefited from sustainability insights derived from decades of prior military experience,” said Edwards.

Leidos also operates the Technical Assistance for Repairables Processing (TARP), a large secondary item retrograde program for the Navy and the Marine Crops. “In over seven years of intense opera-tional tempo, between 2005 and 2011, Leidos has helped the Marine Corps move over 249,000 ground equipment depot-level repairables worth over $1.4 billion, saving over $60 million in costs with an aver-age transportation time of only five and a half days,” said Edwards. “Leidos’ provides the Marine Corps with over 99.5 percent accuracy in tracking and proof of delivery for these critical items, and Marine Corps operating forces have avoided an estimated $70 million in lost and damaged carcass charges.”

Edwards believes that modeling and simulation hold great prom-ise in providing cost-effective sustainability insights early, including virtual prototyping, and throughout the acquisition life cycle. “That, coupled with emerging big data methods, will make complex data analysis more feasible,” he said. “Big data capabilities will allow mili-tary logisticians to take real-time intelligence and apply it to current and specific logistics operations.”

The chances that the Department of Defense will be able to over-haul its sustainment regime have much to do with the understanding of the importance of this mission by higher-level DoD and congressio-nal policymakers. “Military systems program mangers are facing a big squeeze of shrinking budgets along with pressure to extend the life cycles of aging platforms,” said Beil. “They are required to preserve, if not increase, system readiness, so they are caught between a rock and a hard spot. Decisions to move forward with programs like MSG-3 hinge on leadership recognizing the need to change.”

“It’s going to be difficult to convince Congress to appropriate funds today that will create future savings, especially if we return to sequestration-level funding,” said Berteau. “Another element of uncertainty is the refusal of Congress over the last couple of years to offset areas where the Pentagon already proposed to cut spending and put those funds toward other things, like maintenance and sustain-ment.” Over the last two budget cycles, DoD has proposed to reduce the rates of increases for military pay and benefits.

The fiscal situation is exacerbated by the fact that today’s mili-tary equipment is more strained than at other historical drawdown phases. “Our inventory of assets are older, they are used more, and we have fewer of them” than during other comparable historical periods, said Berteau. “Equipment that is used more tends to require more maintenance and more downtime. It is harder to find parts for older platforms and people to repair them.

“On the other hand,” Berteau continued, “technology allows us to internally track the performance of systems and get to them before they break down. So there are two dynamics working at cross purposes: The need is higher because of the age of the systems and the opportunities to target expenditures are greater than they have ever been.”

How does Berteau think Congress will handle the issue? “I’m a little more worried than I am optimistic,” he said. O

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Compiled by KMI Media Group staffSUPPLY CHAIN

Defense Logistics Agency Distribution Tobyhanna, Pa., has extended its storage and distri-bution (S&D) programs to 23 new customers from across the DoD.

These new DLA Distribution customers are unique program-manager-owned equipment programs, which include items like computers, servers, sights for crew-served weapons, elec-tronic countermeasure equipment and repair parts.

The Tobyhanna Program Manager Storage and Distribution initiative participating program managers are able to maintain stocks co-located with their servicing maintenance activities while having those stocks controlled on a DoD-accountable record that’s also audit-able, said Joe Faris, DLA Distribution’s business development director. Customers also save money with the field activity’s economical storage and distribution rates, as well as DoD’s transportation network and best-value pricing.

“The Tobyhanna Program Manager S&D initiative is a huge win for DoD and DLA,” Faris said. “We now have 20 Army PMs, two Defense Health Agency PMs and one Navy PM leveraging our existing capability at DLA Distribution Tobyhanna, supporting maintenance and world-wide customers. This effort enabled DoD PMs to reduce their costs by eliminating redundant S&D providers into a single service provider.”

Tobyhanna Army Depot, already a retail customer of DLA Distribution Tobyhanna, can potentially benefit from the program manager customers by accessing their major end items and secondary items stored directly across the street from their production lines, he added.

The transition of program manager stocks to DLA Distribution Tobyhanna began in October 2014, and as of February 2015 the distribution center is tracking material from three program managers in DLA Distribution’s warehousing system, the Distribution Standard System. The stock from the remaining 20 program managers is in a modified “where is, as is” process. For stocks outside of DSS, DLA processes the receipts manually and, if required, directly accesses Wide Area Work Flow to confirm the receipt of material to allow for payments to vendors. DLA processes stock issuances manually and creates the required paperwork using the trans-shipment function.

“DLA Distribution and DLA Distribution Tobyhanna were able to realize immediate gains and continued relevancy while creating the case study for long-term growth by offering DLA storage and distribution support to all other PMs who would benefit from co-located mainte-nance and storage and distribution activities,” said Army Lieutenant Colonel Troy Rittenhouse, DLA Distribution Tobyhanna commander.

Article by Jessica Roman, DLA Distribution.

Shield Technologies Corp. has received a $12.1 million award from PM Towed Artillery Systems to provide its patented Envelop Protective Covers to the fleet’s approximately 1,500 M777A2 and M119A3 howitzers. Envelop’s superior anti-corrosive covers were selected as the best value to preserve the entire fleet of new state-of-the-art artillery systems and ultimately reduce the total cost of owner-ship and maximize equipment lifespan. As the largest provider of anti-corrosive technology to the Department of Defense, Envelop Protective Covers has delivered more than 70,000 covers to all five branches of the military since 2004.

Following introduction into the field artillery community 10 years ago, Envelop Protective Covers have evolved to meet and exceed soldiers’ and Marines’ expectations. As with these new howitzers, numerous upgrades to equipment have been made over the past decade, and Envelop Protective Covers has advanced its technologies beyond all others to ensure that a wide range of critical performance charac-teristics, such as material strength, durability, breathability and corrosion reduction, meet the need for upgraded protection. Envelop Protective Covers are a revolution in asset protection and sustainment. The company’s

patented system provides the most effec-tive protective cover on the market that is the durable, breathable industry leader in corro-sion protection. Designed to protect high-value assets from the harmful degradation associated with corrosion and exposure to harsh elements, Envelop Protective Covers are without peer in the cover industry. This platform-wide outfitting of Envelop Protective Covers and the assign-ment of basic issue item status will ensure that all towed artillery in the U.S. arsenal is kept in war-fighting condition and menial maintenance tasks such as “busting rust” are significantly reduced at a minimum cost to the taxpayer.

U.S Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI) is soliciting information regarding a contract vehicle exclusive for foreign military service and support (FMSS) requirements.

This contract will require rapid execution (e.g., five-day turnaround of rough orders of magnitude and three to six weeks (dependent upon complexity) turnaround for proposal prep-aration, negotiations and award) of task orders and change orders as they arise.

The vast majority of these requirements are currently being satisfied by PEO STRI through an existing contract vehicle, Warfighter Field Operations Customer Support (WFF), a single-award IDIQ contract. The period of performance for this contract vehicle will end in October 2017. As a result, PEO STRI is developing a contract vehicle to continue the training aids, devices, simulators and simulations maintenance efforts. However, this will leave a requirements gap with respect to the foreign military services and logis-tical/operational support historically executed under the WFF contract. The FMSS vehicle is intended to fill that gap.

The FMSS vehicle will handle the prepon-derance of FMS cases which align with the core service areas. These core areas are listed in descending order according to the histor-ical frequency and percent-funded value of all service-related cases implemented through PEO STRI over the last three years.

DLA’s Tobyhanna Distribution Center Takes on New Functions

Protective Covers Ordered for Howitzers

Foreign Military Services and Support


U.S. Army AviAtion And miSSile life CyCle mAnAgement CommAnd And ProgrAm exeCUtive offiCe AviAtion

2015

readiness Providers

major general Jim richardsonCommander

mary C. dickensdeputy to the Commanding generalU.S. Army Aviation and missile life Cycle management Command

Major General Jim Richardson is a native of Myrtle Beach, S.C., and a 1982 graduate of the University of South Carolina.

Richardson’s most recent assignments include deputy com-manding general, III Corps and Fort Hood. While deployed, he was assigned as the deputy commanding general, United States Force- Afghanistan, and commander of the U.S. National Support Element. Throughout his career, he has served in Army units in the United States, Republic of South Korea, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. Richardson is a Master Army Aviator who has commanded soldiers in combat on six different occasions in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and has commanded at every level.

Mary C. Dickens was appointed to the senior executive service in June 2009. Since May 2013, she has served as the deputy to the commanding general, U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM). In this position, Dickens manages a multifaceted and diverse organization with an annual budget of over $4 billion and a global workforce of over 11,000 military and civilian employees.

From June 2009 to April 2013, Dickens served as the top acquisi-tion authority, consultant and advisor to the commanding general and the deputy to the commander, Research, Development and Acquisition, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT), AMCOM and Army Contracting Command-Redstone (ACC-R). In this role, she managed and directed the acquisition program consisting of contract awards of $25 billion annually and active contracts of $110 billion.

Major General Jim RichardsonCommander

U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command

Mary C. DickensDeputy to the Commanding GeneralU.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life

Cycle Management Command

Readiness ProvidersEfficient Stewardship of Army Assets and Resources

Q&AQ&A

www.MLF-kmi.com U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command and PEO Aviation | MLF 9.2 | 1

U.S. ARmy AviAtion And miSSilE lifE CyClE mAnAgEmEnt CommAnd And PEo AviAtion

Jimmy DownsDeputy Project

Manager

Col. James KennedyProject Manager

Lt. Col. (P) Chris MillsProduct Manager

Armed Recon

Lt. Col. JB WorleyProduct Manager

Kiowa Warrior

ARMED SCOUT FixED Wing

Todd MillerDeputy Project

Manager

Col. Steve ClarkProject Manager

Lt. Col. Brian ForrestProduct Manager Special Electronic Mission Aircraft

Lt. Col. Kirk McCauleyProduct Director Transport Aircraft

AviATiOn SySTEMS

Lt. Col. Jon FrasierProduct Manager, ATC

Col. Jerry DavisProject Manager

Rod BellowsDeputy Project

Manager

Lt. Col. Scott EvertonProduct Manager

AME

John WelchProduct Manager (A)

AnMP

Lt. Col. Kirk RingbloomProduct Manager

AgSE

APAChE hELiCOPTERS

Lt. Col. Tal SheppardProduct Manager

Longbow

Col. Jeff hagerProject Manager

Rich TylerD Deputy Project

Manager

Lt. Col. Brian StehleProduct Manager

Block iii

Lt. Col. Louis KingProduct Manager

Sensors

Lt. Col. Alex AlejoProduct Manager

international

Brig. gen. Bob Marion

PEO

Marsha JeffersAPEO

Administration

John BeckChief of Staff

Rusty WeigerDeputy PEO

John MullAPEO, Business

Terry CarlsonAPEO, iT

Dave SainsburyAPEO, Security

Ray SellersAPEO, Engr & Tech

Col. Brian TachiasAPEO, Life Cycle

Management

hEADqUARTERS

PROgRAM ExECUTivE OFFiCE AviATiOn


Maj. gen. Jim Richardson

Commander

Cmd. Sgt. Maj. glen velaCommand

Sergeant Major

Col. Sheila A. BryantChief of Staff

Cathy DickensDeputy Commander

CWO 5 Leonte CardonaBranch Aviation

Maintenance Officer

Kelvin nunnDeputy Project

Manager

Col. James BrashearProject Manager

Dwayne Jones(A) Product Director

Scout/Attack & Cargo Utility

Lt. Col. Craig BesawProduct Director

Mi‐17/Mi‐35

nOn-STAnDARD ROTARy Wing AiRCRAFT

Paul BakerDeputy Project

Manager

Col. Rob BarrieProject Manager

Lt. Col. Calvin LaneProduct Manager ‐

47 Mod

Lt. Col. Reese hauensteinProduct Manager

Ch‐47F

CARgO hELiCOPTERSUTiLiTy

Lt. Col. David CheneyProduct Manager

h‐72A

greg goreDeputy Project

Manager

Lt. Col. Roger KuykendallProduct Manager Common Engine

Lt. Col. Paul AndersonProduct Manager

MEDEvAC

Raymond hayes Jr.Product Director

international Programs

Andrew KsepkaProduct Director

Modifications

Anthony DupreeProduct Manager

Uh‐60v

Forrest CollierProduct Manager

h‐60L Digital

Col. Thomas Todd iiiProject Manager

Lt. Col. Bradley BruceProduct Manager

Uh‐60 M

UnMAnnED AiRCRAFT SySTEMS

viva KelleyProduct Director

Unmanned Sys Airspace integration Concepts

Lt. Col. William venableProduct Manager Common Systems

integration

Lt. Col. nick KioutasProduct Manager Small UAS/Mod

Rich KretzschmarDeputy Project

Manager

Col. Courtney CoteProject Manager

Lt. Col. Tory BurgessProduct Manager

Tactical UAS

Lt. Col. Tony DavilaProduct Manager Medium Altitude

Endurance

AviATiOn AnD MiSSiLE COMMAnD

Q: Toward the end of December 2014, you led AMCOM 101 for Army aviation stakeholders. Tell me what AMCOM 101 is all about and what you wanted to achieve.

A: AMCOM 101 is an outreach program by which we educate our customers on what we do, how we do it and, most importantly, on how we can assist them in maintaining a high level of combat readi-ness. Our customers in this case are combat aviation brigade, Army Air Defense Command, commanders and their key staff members. I define key staff as command sergeants major, brigade executive offi-cers, brigade maintenance officers and key members of the brigade’s maintenance and logistics staff.

I kick off all AMCOM 101 sessions with a welcome briefing and attend as many of the sessions as I can. All of my key staff—my dep-uty, my command sergeant major, my branch maintenance officer and the executive director of the AMCOM Logistics Center—actively participate in these sessions. We also bring in subject-matter experts to brief their areas of expertise. For example, the chief of our readi-ness directorate briefs in detail on the capabilities of our logistics assistance representatives, the role we want them to play in the unit and the training we give to them.

AMCOM has been doing a version of AMCOM 101 since early in the war effort, but I am placing renewed emphasis on it because I know firsthand how mission and training requirements can con-sume the attention of a brigade commander. I want to push our capabilities to our customers and let them know what we can do for them, rather than wait for them to request help. And we can achieve that by taking the time to personally interact with customers in the AMCOM 101 forum.

Q: How is AMCOM working to manage spare parts inventory to ensure there is little sitting on the shelves but everything is where it needs to be when it needs to be there? Is this part of your overall enterprise resource planning strategy?

A: AMCOM is working a number of efforts to accomplish exactly what you describe, i.e., better balance our inventory against require-ments, and make sure that the inventory we do have is properly accounted for, properly stored and readily accessible to our soldiers in the field. The umbrella term we use is ‘cost-wise readiness,’ which was coined by our executive director of the AMCOM Logistics Cen-ter, and encompasses a wide variety of initiatives that improve our supply chain from the foxhole to the factory.

As the name implies, our goal is to maintain warfighter readi-ness while being good stewards of Army resources. This program covers multiple actions: reduction of excess inventory; recovery of inventory from wartime theaters; improved inspection and parts overhaul programs; detailed and recurring reconciliations of open requisitions and financial obligation documents; and regular plan-ning sessions with our parts suppliers, including industry and the Defense Logistics Agency. A key component of achieving Army-wide visibility of spare parts inventory versus requirements is the effec-tive implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools.

In our case, the tool is the Logistics Modernization Program (LMP), the ERP tool for the Institutional Army, which AMCOM implemented in 2008 and which we’ve worked to improve upon continuously ever since. LMP has enabled us to execute our depot repair programs, which include major assemblies such as engines

along with smaller spare parts, in a much more cost-effective manner, which leads inevitably to more dollars for spares and increased readiness. Now that the Army is fielding the operational Army’s ERP, the Global Combat Service Support System (GCSS-A), our challenge is to achieve an effective link between the logistics ‘requirements’ data resident in GCSS-A and the ‘replenishment’ data resident in LMP.

We are working with both unit customers and the Army’s proj-ect managers to achieve a seamless integration of these ERP sys-tems in order to ensure that AMCOM’s responsiveness remains high and that real requirements drive out resupply decisions.

With all that said, I must remind the audience that we are sup-porting a war-fighting Army, not a business entity which measures success by profit and loss statements. To maintain readiness for combat and effectively support combat operations, we must accept that there is a balance to be struck between a business model of just-in-time logistical delivery and a contingency model of “just in case” logistical stockpiles. We will not maintain iron mountains of spare parts, but I also will not assume the risk of not being able to fill a unit’s requisitions, whether it’s to support training or a deployment.

We at AMCOM must be ready to support our soldiers’ needs, and we will work with them and the entire supply chain to accom-plish that.

Q: What is AMCOM’s role in the future vertical lift program? What is your take on the program’s path to date?

A: Because Future Vertical Lift (FVL) is a science and technology pro-gram (S&T), AMCOM’s role is primarily an advisory one at this point.

We have AMCOM personnel embedded in the program man-agement offices of PEO Aviation, and since I serve as the materiel release authority, AMCOM subject-matter experts are full partici-pants in the materiel release process. We use both of these avenues to participate in the development process that encompasses S&T programs such as FVL.

Since we are the logistical providers of the life cycle manage-ment approach used here at Redstone, my goal in a S&T program is to advise on the development of the logistical key performance parameters, things like engine performance specs, fuel economy and mean time between failure rates for key spares and assemblies. This approach engineers logistical sustainability early in the acqui-sition process. If we can accomplish that, we will drive down the long-term cost to sustain our fleets.

About 70 percent of a system’s total cost to the Army is incurred during the sustainment phase of the life cycle, i.e., after all the development, testing and procurement actions are completed. If we can drive down that cost by better engineering our systems to achieve higher levels of performance at lower operating costs, we will do the Army a tremendous service.

Q: How do you communicate and coordinate with the other PEOs on system support? For example, on any given UAS when the platform comes to you but the sensors need to go off in another direction, how does that all fit into the pipeline?

A: You are asking a system integration question, and we rely on our two supported PEOs: PEO Aviation, and PEO Missiles and Space—to work the systems integration issues. Each PEO approaches this

www.MLF-kmi.com4 | MLF 9.2 | U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command and PEO Aviation


challenge a little bit differently, but both of them have PEO staff that work these issues and also support the project managers when they need it.

Our involvement is focused on the sustainment of the over-all system, and our embedded logisticians provide the business case and sustainability analyses that assist PMs in the integration decision-making process. Of course, our logisticians communicate daily with their counterparts in other PEOs, and especially in other life cycle management commands, to work sustainment questions that involve other command sub-systems. At the end of the day, it’s our job to sustain the helicopter or missile system; if the radios or radars are down, the entire system is down, so we work all sustain-ment issues before they arise.

Q: How are the workloads at your depots at Corpus Christi and Letterkenney for the rest of 2015? Are the depots running at the capacity levels the Army needs?

A: As you can probably guess, our depots are both seeing reduced workloads as the pace of deployments slows.

Both depots do have work programmed through the remainder of the fiscal year, and they also have fairly solid projections of work in 2016. These projections, of course, can change due to decisions about sequestration, or if Army units are given unanticipated con-tingency missions. What’s important to relay to you is that both

depots, as well as the AMCOM staff, work closely with our sup-ported customers—which in this case, are our aviation and missile project management offices—to plan workload carefully to meet all requirements.

Some of our work includes repair and return programs support-ing foreign military sales customers, and that’s an area we are trying to grow as support requirements for the Army diminish.

To answer your second question: Yes, both depots are running at the capacity levels the Army needs right now. And they can increase their production rates if required.

Q: Will the depots be adding any new work lines or capacity in the near future?

A: We continually add new capability through use of the Depot Capi-tal Improvement Program; this is an Army investment account that provides a vehicle to purchase specialized, state-of-the-art industrial equipment.

For example, we’ve recently added improved engine and trans-mission test equipment and a fluid cell press (to create aircraft structural parts) at Corpus Christi Army Depot. Smart investments like this allow us to add production capacity without expanding our footprint.

In addition to productivity increases, these investments usually provide improvements in safety and environmental impact.

www.MLF-kmi.com U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command and PEO Aviation | MLF 9.2 | 5


GS-35F-0673JContract GS-35F-0673J

Obviously, this is something to strive for, so our depots continue to identify capability upgrades that can be achieved through the capital improvement program.

As far as new work lines, we are working with supported PMs to identify programs that can be supported by the depots. I am on a personal mission to move as many programs as are feasible from contractor logistics support arrangements to support by the Army’s soldiers and organic industrial base. I believe that is the right thing to do for many reasons, not the least of which is lower cost of support to the Army. Some candidates include PAC-3 missiles, THAAD and AH-64E unique components.

Q: When you look at the Army’s helicopter fleets, does the age of the fleet cause you any pause? What is your approach to man-aging the required readiness requirements when looking at the maintenance requirements?

A: The age of the fleet is a concern, but our aircraft continue to meet mission requirements and readiness targets precisely because of the maintenance investments we have made over the past 10 years.

I am speaking, of course, of the reset program, which AMCOM has managed since 2004 and which has, without question, extended the lifespans of our fleets. The reset program’s approach—complete teardown, thorough cleaning, structure and frame inspections, and repairs to airframes and components as needed—has proven to be tremendously effective in improving an aircraft’s readiness track record and in finding issues that normal maintenance practices would not likely spot.

Add to this AMCOM’s corrosion control and prevention pro-gram, which provides both training and solutions to the corrosion challenge, and it’s clear that a proactive approach to performing maintenance is the key to success. The success of reset has led to another AMCOM-managed program called airframe inspection maintenance and sustainment, which provides a reset-like mainte-nance effort to aircraft that have not deployed to combat. The best example is our training aircraft at Fort Rucker—the AIMS Pilot program started with Fort Rucker aircraft and found structural damage and fatigue. We are working issues as we find them, and this approach will extend aircraft service lives sufficient to enable a successful transition to the next generation of Army rotary-wing aircraft.

Q: Kiowa, for one, still hangs in there? How is that platform fitting into your sustainment and support plan?

A: As you probably know, the Army plans to retire the Kiowa fleet as part of the Aviation Restructuring Initiative (ARI).

We are deeply involved in the planning and execution of ARI, and our involvement gives us great insight into the inactivation schedules of Kiowa-equipped units. We are balancing available resources to keep readiness levels high for these units, right up to the moment when they begin inactivation and equipment turn-in.

Kiowa will be in Army formations for a couple more years, so we must maintain them appropriately and keep them combat ready, should a contingency mission arise.

Q: What is AMCOM’s role in foreign material sales (FMS)?

A: All of our supported program managers have FMS programs, some of which are quite large. We have a dedicated staff element, the Security Assistance Management Division (SAMD), that sup-ports FMS sales, equipment delivery and sustainment. Our SAMD personnel are professional logisticians who specialize in security assistance work, which is quite demanding and has a unique set of requirements that cannot be learned overnight.

Our SAMD supports FMS programs for current systems, such as Patriot and Apache, but they also support the sustainment of systems that the U.S. Army no longer uses, such as the Cobra attack helicopter and the Hawk and Chapparal missile systems.

Aviation and Missile FMS programs are present in some form in 82 countries around the world, and the dollar value of these programs rivals the total dollar value of AMCOM sustainment efforts to the Army, so we play a very large role in this key component of U.S. national security policy.

Q: Any closing thoughts?

A: I deployed an attack helicopter battalion to combat in both Afghani-stan and Iraq, and later deployed a combat aviation brigade to combat in Afghanistan.

We could not have succeeded in our missions without the support that AMCOM provided. When my soldiers needed rapid and agile logis-tics support, AMCOM was there for them.

It is now my turn to give back to the Army by doing our very best to provide the same level of support to the soldiers manning our avia-tion and missile systems today. I am proud to serve in AMCOM and our outstanding team of professionals will continue to reach out to our customers to learn their logistical requirements and deliver the support they need. O

An aging Army helicopter fleet is a concern, but investments in maintenance have allowed the fleet to meet mission requirements. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Army/by Captain Andrew Cochran]

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Compiled by KMI Media Group staffSUPPLY CHAIN

Lockheed Martin received an $82 million performance-based logis-tics (PBL) contract in December from the U.S. Army for AH-64 Apache helicopter Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor (M-TADS/PNVS) system sustainment.

The firm-fixed-price contract is the foundation for a comprehensive sustainment solution that enables M-TADS/PNVS mission readiness, reduces operation and support costs, and drives reliability and maintain-ability improvements. This is the third of three one-year options that support the initial $111 million PBL contract awarded in 2012.

“The partnership between the Army Aviation and Missile Command Logistics Center and Lockheed Martin has built a comprehensive logistics solution that consistently meets or exceeds required aircraft readiness rates,” said Rob Breter, Apache PBL senior program manager at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “During its peak operational tempo of more than 200,000 flying hours, the M-TADS/PNVS PBL program averaged a worldwide supply availability rate of 98 percent, increasing mission readiness for the aircrew.”

M-TADS/PNVS provides Apache helicopter pilots’ long-range, preci-sion engagement and pilotage capabilities for mission success and flight safety day or night, or in adverse weather conditions. Lockheed Martin has delivered more than 1,300 M-TADS/PNVS systems to the U.S. Army and international customers.

The Apache PBL team was honored with the 2011 and 2013 Secretary of Defense PBL Awards recognizing outstanding achievements in providing soldiers with exceptional operational support. The M-TADS/PNVS program received the subsystem-level PBL award, which is one of three presented annually to recognize government/industry teams that have demonstrated outstanding achievements.

Boeing and the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) signed the second phase of a performance-based contract that reduces combat logistics support costs while enhancing warfighter readiness.

Under terms of the contract, Boeing will provide support for 11 different aircraft, including the F/A-18 Super Hornet; AH-64 Apache;

AV-8B Harrier; B-52 Stratofortress; C-17 Globemaster III and associ-ated ground support equipment. Work will be administered from St. Louis.

“Warfighters executing their missions rely on their systems being ready when they need them,” said Julie Praiss, Boeing vice presi-dent, tactical aircraft and weapons

support. “In addition, our customers have said they need greater value in their logistics support. Providing improved performance at lower cost is what Boeing is all about.”

The contract, worth $223 million, is the second of two awards under a five-year agreement signed in September 2014. The total contract value is $516 million. DLA

has a follow-on option for an addi-tional five years.

This long-term partnership resulted from a 2012 DLA industry challenge to reduce costs by 20 percent and improve overall supply perfor-mance. Boeing and the DLA continue collaborating on new ways to stream-line processes, enhance performance and improve affordability.

Program Executive Office (PEO) Special Operations Forces Support Activity (SOFSA) is the U.S. Special Operations Command’s dedicated total life cycle sustain-ment activity that provides the SOF community with rapid, responsive and cost-effective global logis-tics support services. PEO SOFSA provides a broad spectrum of logis-tical support services utilizing three core competencies; 1.) Streamlined design and rapid prototyping, 2.) Production, modification and integration, 3.) Life cycle sustain-ment activities. Some of the specific activities conducted by PEO SOFSA include dedicated supply chain management and maintenance for SOF peculiar systems and equipment; aviation, ground and maritime platform integra-tion, modifications and sustain-ment; and expeditionary field support services worldwide. PEO SOFSA also provides these services for other non-SOF Department of Defense and other government agencies as requested to maintain critical capabilities and provide Better Buying Power solutions for the command.

PEO SOFSA is located at Bluegrass Station, Lexington, Ky., and is one of eight execu-tive offices within the Special Operations Research, Development and Acquisition Center office,

headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. The corner-stone of this contractor logistics support (CLS) effort is located in Lexington, Ky., with other key facilities, personnel and equipment located in strategic areas both within and outside the continental United States. The PEO SOFSA contract provides flexible and highly responsive logistics support services to fulfill the logistics readi-ness requirements of USSOCOM.

The objective of this contract is to provide rapid, worldwide response through comprehen-sive CLS. In concert with the Joint Publication 1-02, the contract scope is defined as the joint defi-nition of logistics: the science of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of forces. In its most comprehensive sense, those aspects of military operations which deal with:

a. Design and development, acquisition, storage, movement, distribution, maintenance, evacuation, and disposition of materiel;

b. Movement and evacuation of personnel;

c. Acquisition or construction, maintenance, operation, and disposition of facilities; and

d. Acquisition or furnishing of logistics services.

Apache M-TADS Support

Aircraft Combat Logistics Support

USSOCOM Seeking Support Activity Contractor


Lieutenant General Gustave F. Perna

U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4 Logistics

Readiness Game Changerleadership development, readiness and Army operating Concept/Force 2025

Lieutenant General Gustave F. Perna assumed duties as the U.S. Army’s deputy chief of staff, G-4, on September 18, 2014. He oversees policies and procedures used by 270,000 Army logisticians through-out the world. Prior to joining the Army staff, he served for two years as deputy chief of staff, G-3/4, U.S. Army Materiel Command.

Perna’s other command assignments include: commander, Joint Munitions Command and Joint Munitions and Lethality Lifecycle Management Command, responsible for the life cycle management of $40 billion of conventional ammunition; commander, Defense Supply Center Philadelphia, Defense Logistics Agency, responsible for the procurement of more than $14.5 billion worth of food, cloth-ing, textiles, medicine, medical supplies, construction and equipment items for America’s warfighters and other customers worldwide; commander, 4th Sustainment Brigade, where he deployed the brigade to combat operations during OIF 05-07; commander, 64th Forward Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo., where he deployed the battalion to combat operations during OIF I; deputy commanding officer, 64th Corps Support Group, 13th Corps Support Command, Fort Hood, Texas; and commander, B Company, 143rd Ordnance Battalion, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

Perna’s key staff assignments include: director of logistics, J-4, U.S. Forces-Iraq, responsible for sustainment plans and policies for strategic and operational logistics to sustain coalition and joint forces; executive officer to the director of the Defense Logistics Agency, supporting the director’s mission of providing Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and other federal agencies with logistics, acquisitions and technical services support; ordnance branch chief, Human Resources Command; DISCOM executive officer and G-4, 1st Cavalry Division, where he deployed to Bosnia; 544th Maintenance Battalion support operations officer and battalion executive officer, 13th COSCOM; and G-4 maintenance officer, 13th COSCOM, where he deployed to Somalia as a member of Joint Task Force Support Command.

He graduated from Valley Forge Military Academy with an associate degree in business administration. Graduating as a dis-tinguished military graduate, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, infantry officer. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in logistics management from Florida Institute of Technology. His military education includes: Infantry Officer Basic Course, Ordnance Officer Advance Course, Logistics Executive Development Course, Support Operations Course, Command and General Staff College and Senior Service College.

His awards and decorations include: Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Defense Superior Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster,

Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Parachutist and Air Assault Badges.

Q: You have been the Army G-4 for about six months. Can you talk about your priorities and logistics leadership?

A: When I first met the Army G-4 team, I was immediately impressed with the high level of energy and the significant work being done to support formations on all continents and to restore and sustain readi-ness across the Army—not to mention other major projects like divest-ing equipment, repositioning and modernizing Army prepositioned stocks, creating equipment activity sets, and fielding GCSS-Army.

What I am doing now, in conjunction with a great G-4 leadership team, is making sure we keep our efforts synchronized through a strategic vision that is focused five or more years into the future. We do that in several ways. First, we talk constantly about the importance of focusing on what is really important, and that is the Army chief of staff’s five priorities: adaptive Army leaders for a complex world; a globally responsive and regionally engaged Army; a ready and modern Army; soldiers committed to our Army profession; and the premier all-volunteer Army. I often tell the G-4 team that everything we do must be connected to those priorities. If a program, policy or meeting doesn’t support those priorities, we don’t need it!

To further support the chief’s priorities and synchronize efforts within the G-4, we established three lines of effort: leadership

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development, readiness and Army operating concept/Force 2025. Each of these lines of effort leads to a strategic outcome directly supporting the CSA’s priorities—we are orienting all major internal processes and meetings around them. And when the G-4 staff develops objectives in support of our lines of effort, they must have metrics to measure our progress toward the strategic outcomes and the CSA’s priorities.

Finally, I have authorized every G-4 member to challenge the sta-tus quo. Just because something worked successfully while support-ing a largely static, FOB [forward-operating base]-based war in Iraq or Afghanistan does not mean it will work when we need to project large, trained and ready formations on short notice to austere expeditionary environments. I have asked my team to continually take a hard look at Army log structure and processes, and advise me on areas that require change or improvement as we transition from 13 years of war to the ready and modern, globally responsive Army the chief describes.

Q: Clearly, the Army is facing a time of decreasing resources but increasing requirements. How is this impacting the logistics com-munity? What are your primary concerns in this time of transition?

A: The dynamics you described are definitely affecting the logistics community, as they are the rest of the Army. From a logistics per-spective, what I am most concerned about is our ability to perform operational logistics on the battlefield. Thirteen years of FOB-based logistics and largely predictable deployments have allowed some key logistics skills to atrophy—like the ability for soldiers (not contrac-tors) to provide logistics to a large mobile force, and our ability to deploy large units with all their equipment, on short notice, some-where besides Kuwait and Afghanistan.

The risk generated by these atrophied skills will be exacerbated if we don’t get relief from sequestration, because sequestration would limit our ability to re-train ourselves. The last time we faced seques-tration, in 2013, we had to cancel many training exercises, and only a few brigades were ready for an unexpected crisis. We learned from that. If we have to cut again, the chief’s priority is to protect major training events like combat training center rotations—although we don’t know for sure that Congress will allow us flexibility to prioritize where we do and don’t take cuts. As some would recall, in 2013 we had to reduce every program by an equal percentage.

Sequestration would also hurt our reset efforts. We are bringing $30 billion in equipment out of Afghanistan, including our most modern vehicles, helicopters and communications gear. The equip-ment served our soldiers well for many years of combat, but now it needs to be repaired before being put back into soldiers’ hands again. Sequestration would impede this effort by requiring us to slow or stop repairs being done at our depots and arsenals. Repair delays would make it much harder to fill critical shortages across the Army; slow or stopped production lines would generate turbulence and decreased morale within our depot and arsenal workforces.

Weathering this perfect storm of challenges is going to require strategic thinking and leadership at all levels within our logistics units and commands.

Q: Last year there was about $15 billion in Army equipment still in country—down from almost $30 billion the year before. Where is the Army in the retrograde, and is everything on track?

A: The Army ought to be applauded for the huge amount of work it has done supporting the drawdown. We are on track. As of the first of this

year, there was less than $7 billion worth of equipment remaining in Afghanistan. Last year, we had 87 bases in Afghanistan; today, we have 25. Last year, we had 18,000 vehicles on the ground; today, there are 5,000. We won’t leave Afghanistan like the Soviets, with equipment scattered everywhere. We are responsible allies and responsible stew-ards of the equipment the taxpayers have given us.

Getting equipment out of that region was unprecedented in com-plexity, and I am really proud of the incredible work our young sustain-ers have done so far under very trying conditions. They had difficult ground, air and sea routes; they faced constant targeting by the enemy; there were budget constraints—and yet they still found a way to do it. They are the adaptive leaders and professionals the Army needs in a complex world. Our mission is not over, though. We still have about 10,000 personnel on the ground who need our support as they train Afghan forces. We still have retrograded equipment to repair.

Q: The Army is now a couple of years into its 2012-2022 Organic Industrial Base Strategic Plan. How is the plan holding up to the real world?

A: The plan remains viable, and we are on track. The 2012-2022 Organic Industrial Base Strategic Plan provides the necessary stra-tegic roadmap and management oversight to ensure our depots and arsenals remain viable, effective and efficient as the Army draws down combat operations.

Lieutenant General Michael Williamson [principal military dep-uty to the assistant secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology)] and I co-chair the Army’s Organic Industrial Base Cor-porate Board. This is the forum where we review the health of Army depots and arsenals. As a newcomer to this review process, I will tell you that I am impressed with the work that has been done so far. We have applied the right focus.

We are transitioning from our dependence on wartime funding and building an affordable base program budget. We reduced our core depot maintenance requirements, aligning them to the Joint Chiefs of Staff war-fighting scenarios and force structure reductions. We pri-oritized and resourced capital investment projects to ensure the facili-ties are modernized sufficiently to sustain new weapon systems. We developed policies that improved workload planning and execution. We continue to size the depot and arsenal workforces to a level that sustains the Army’s core critical manufacturing requirements. Our continuous collaboration across DoD and industry has resulted in weapon system efficiencies and increased public-private partnerships.

Q: Does the Army have the right number of depots?

A: We are looking at that now. In the last 13 years, our depots and arsenals had sufficient capacity to meet all the requirements of two wars, and they performed magnificently. As we transition to an Army capable of meeting challenges in 2025, we are collaborating with the Army G-3 to determine if there will be changes to war-fighting sce-narios or equipment densities that would suggest different capacity requirements. Additionally, if sequestration remains law over the next few years, that will have an impact on depot workloads, most likely driving workloads down. If that is the case, we will need to figure out how to resolve the difference between available and required capacity.

Q: Would there be any synergy gained by combining some depot-type functions of the services together into joint depots of some kind?


A: It is going on now. DoD has set up a depot source of repair pro-cess, where we work with our sister services to identify the most economical way to take advantage of existing capabilities.

For example, the Army repairs rotary-wing aircraft at Corpus Christi Army Depot for the Navy and Air Force; we repair M1 tanks at Anniston Army Depot for the Army and the Marine Corps; and at Tobyhanna Army Depot, we do all DoD missile guidance work for the Army, Navy and Air Force. Conversely, we rely on the Air Force to repair Army unmanned aircraft systems airborne platforms, while the Army repairs ground radar/communications components for these systems. This type of synergy takes advantage of each of the services’ core competencies without duplicating capabilities.

Q: Can you give me an update on GCSS-Army implementation? Is Wave 2 still on track for 2015?

A: GCSS-Army implementation is on track. By December of this year, we will have fielded Wave I of GCSS-Army at 300 of the planned 315 warehouses worldwide. It replaced the Standard Army Retail Supply System. We anticipate Wave 1 to be totally complete by the end of March 2016.

Wave 2 is much larger and more complex, and it is also on track. With Wave 2, we will be replacing more than 2,200 property books and 12,500 unit supply records within the Property Book Unit Supply-Enhanced system. Wave 2 also replaces the Standard Army Main-tenance System at over 10,000 maintenance sites. Fielding began

in January, and over the next two and a half years we will convert every supply room, motor pool and property book office in the Army. Once in place, GCSS-Army will dramatically change how the Army manages our supply chain and tactical equipment fleets. It will link financial and logistics actions for the first time, allowing the Army to meet Congressionally-mandated financial auditability goals.

Q: How has the focus on operational energy altered the way the Army approaches energy sources, use and acquisition?

A: The Army approaches operational energy as a force-multiplier—efficient and effective use of energy enhances force protection as well as enabling us to get more performance, range and endurance from our equipment. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan showed us how absolutely critical energy is to war fighting, and how difficult it is to deliver energy across the battlefield. Additionally—and unfortunately—those wars reminded us of the risks inherent in any logistics operation that requires soldiers to travel great distances to deliver commodities. That is why one of our chief focuses for operational energy is reducing energy requirements, so we can also reduce the requirement to physically transport fuel and energy-related items.

For this reason, as well as our desire to be good stewards, we need to become more efficient in terms of energy usage. That means using less fuel, less water and getting more out of our batteries. It also means we need to focus on renewable energy sources such as

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wind and solar, which can make energy available at the point of consumption instead of being delivered from somewhere else.

We are developing portable shelters that are more energy-efficient and generators and power grids that are optimized for peak efficiency. We’re improving engines and transmissions to make vehicles and helicopters more efficient. The efficiency enhances mission capability with additional range and duration, in many cases creating a more capable combat force. We are also looking at rechargeable batteries that can be recharged at forward bases, significantly reducing the cost and burden of procuring new batter-ies. We believe this work will yield savings in many areas, including soldiers’ lives.

Q: I understand you have been travelling to Army installations and talking about leadership development. How do you build a bench for future logistics leaders?

A: Leadership is people business, not email business. Since G-4 poli-cies and decisions impact every soldier in the Army, every chance I get I like to get out of the Pentagon and talk to soldiers and civil-ians—to meet them, understand their challenges and understand what they do every day.

Those visits remind me that the Army is different from corpo-rate America in that we cannot hire seasoned talent and make them colonels or generals. We must grow our own professionals, build our own bench. We do this through aggressive talent management,

assigning the right leaders to assignments that will capitalize on their knowledge, skills and experience while developing them for potential future opportunities. We should be doing this at all levels across the Army’s logistics enterprise, from the Pentagon down through forward support companies. It is also important that we keep investing in our schoolhouses—including the important resource of quality leaders like we have there now—so the formal schooling part of developing future logistics leaders is taken care of.

Q: Any closing thoughts?

A: Recently, a soldier I served with in Iraq in 2005 was promoted from first lieutenant to captain. His name is Michael Thomas. He was the night operations NCO, and after the nightly brief I never slept, so I would spend time with him at the operations center. When things were slow, we’d talk and got to know each other. He had been a drill sergeant at the beginning of the two wars, trans-forming civilians to soldiers in nine weeks. During his 17 years as an NCO, he went to school, earned his degree and now is an officer, well-prepared to lead our new generation of warriors.

Captain Thomas exemplifies what the chief means when he talks about soldiers committed to our Army profession. It is such an honor to serve with soldiers like him, and with all of the great mem-bers of our logistics community, both military and civilian. Working with people of character, competence and commitment—that is what makes our Army so special. O

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In early 2011, there were nearly 100,000 U.S. servicemembers and more than 90,000 civilians and contractors in Afghanistan supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

In June 2011, President Barack Obama announced the draw-down plans for Afghanistan, a cessation of combat operations by the end of 2014.

As a result of that drawdown, about 9,800 U.S. servicemembers remain in country as part of Operation Resolute Support (ORS). The ORS mission is aimed at training, advising and assisting Afghan forces, but leaving security to the Afghans.

Bringing the U.S. presence in Afghanistan down from 100,000 troops to 9,800 was a monumental task that required more than sending servicemembers home. As part of the withdrawal, all the gear deployed over the past 13 years had to go: combat vehicles, weapons systems, office equipment and mission-support equipment.

Additionally, the 200 to 300 military bases that were in use since 2001 needed to be returned to their natural state—desert in some cases. Other facilities had to be deconstructed to satisfy the requirements of those who would eventually receive them: the

Afghan government or Army.A “team of teams” was required to tackle this monu-

mental mission; no one command or agency could do it alone.

The leader of the “team of teams” in Afghanistan was the Interna-

tional Security Assistance Forces and United

States Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A). They were the leaders and planners that gave the directive and provided the guidance for the equipment reduction process.

Orchestrating the execution and assisting USFOR-A with the planning of this enormous mission on the ground in Afghanistan was the U.S. Army Central’s 1st Sustainment Command (Theater). The “team of teams” in Afghanistan included support from a joint force, which included soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, DoD civil-ians and contractors who operated under the mission command of the 1st TSC.

To accomplish the mission, 1st TSC and USFOR-A depended heavily upon the strategic partnership with Army Materiel Command, Defense Logistics Agency, U.S. Transportation Command, Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, United States Cen-tral Command J-4, CENTCOM Deployment Distribution Operations Center, Army G-4, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology and others. “Our relationship with these strategic partners was the key to success,” said Major General Darrell Williams, commander, 1st TSC. “This is the ultimate team sport.”

Since June 2013, the 1st TSC and its strategic partners executed their part of Operation Drumbeat (ODB)—run by USFOR-A—to close out America’s 13 years of combat operations in Afghanistan. The 1st TSC portion of that mission was called Operation Reliable Tempo (ORT). “The team was already doing an excellent job of executing Reliable Tempo when I assumed com-mand in January of 2014,” said Williams.

Not all equipment left Afghanistan, Williams said. Some equip-ment, based on estimates regarding the cost of shipping gear home, stayed in country to be sold or disposed of. That was a task that Williams said the Defense Logistics Agency proved indispensable in achieving.

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Equipment deemed obsolete or not required for future Army readiness was transferred to the Afghan National Security Forces to increase their readiness or disposed of in Afghanistan in order to avoid transporta-tion expenses.

Equipment is returned to the United States and into the Army inventory for future contingencies and train-ing missions. Army Materiel Command will reset and redistribute the equipment to units based on priorities established by Department of the Army, said Williams. “Operation Reliable Tempo was a critical link in the process of moving equipment from Afghanistan and ultimately back into the hands of our soldiers and build-ing Army readiness,” said Williams.

Williams said that in their execution of ORT, the 1st TSC planners and those responsible for executing the mission kept in mind that all materials brought into theater by American forces were paid for by American taxpayers. The 1st TSC had a responsibility to ensure materials were brought home or that the value was returned to the Army. That is called ‘responsible ret-rograde’.

Also part of the 1st TSC’s responsibility was the reduction of military bases to return them to the Afghan people.

“As you looked around those base camps, you were essentially in a small city,” Williams said. “In some cases, we literally had to turn it into the desert as it was when we first found it.”

In larger places, like Kandahar Air Base and Bagram Air Base, “it was a combination of reducing portions of the large bases to their original state and transferring them to our Afghan partners. It was and continues to be an enormous effort,” said Williams.

At the same time they retrograded equipment from Afghanistan and assisted in shutting down base camps, the 1st TSC continued to provide logistical and sustainment support to the TAA mission and the other units conducting retrograde operations.

The 1st TSC had to conduct retrograde operations during an ongoing war at the same time they retrograded their organizational units—in effect, painting themselves out of the room.

“On the one hand, we were supporting the ODB plan,” Williams said. “And then on the other, we were retrograding ourselves—per-sonnel and equipment. That was a daunting task.”

Like ODB, of which it is a part, ORT was divided into four phases. In June 2013, when ODB began, the 1st TSC hadn’t developed their operations order that would allow them to carry out their portion of the plan. That lack of direction for executing ODB was quickly remedied, said Major General Duane A. Gamble, who served as the deputy commanding general of the 1st TSC from July 2013 through July 2014.

“When I arrived in early July, USFOR-A’s ODB order was opera-tional. The first thing I asked was, ‘Where is the 1st TSC’s order?’ We didn’t have one. The TSC spent much of Phase 1 writing our order to support ODB with a synchronized effort not only for the TSC, but also for our strategic partners. That order complemented and sup-ported the ODB phasing,” Gamble said.

“It was about making sure that all commanders and supporting agencies in Afghanistan understood that the USFOR-A mission was changing, that we had to posture the force for December 31, 2014, while still executing the mission,” he said. “We were still about 18 months out from the end of OEF.”

Operation Reliable Tempo was the 1st TSC’s formal effort to ensure the logistics enterprise, “Team of Teams,” understood not only the new USFOR-A mission, but also how the 1st TSC com-mander saw the orchestration of all support agencies in support of USFOR-A.

By September 2013, ORT had reached Phase 2. According to Major General James M. Richardson, who served as the commander of USFOR-A from June 2012 to March 2014, Phase 2 was the busiest time for the operation—the most equipment was moved, and the most bases were shut down.

“Phase 2 began right after the summer,” Richardson said. “This was a big push to get our equipment out. There was a lot of coordina-tion and synchronization with Army Materiel Command, U.S. Trans-portation Command and all our enablers—it was mindboggling.”

Richardson said that they were used to moving around 400 to 500 pieces of rolling stock, or vehicles, out of theater each month. In Phase 2, that throughput increased substantially.

“We were jumping up to 1,500 to 2,000 pieces a month,” Rich-ardson said. “There were challenges. With the great support of our enablers, we were able to overcome those challenges and meet our objectives.”

One of those challenges had been how to get cargo out of Afghani-stan, Richardson said. Equipment had been leaving Afghanistan by air or by ground through the Pakistan ground lines of communication.

“The majority of ground equipment went through PAKGLOC,” Richardson said. “Many times the borders were closed and it would back our equipment up. Those challenges meant we had to work with U.S. Transportation Command to take that equipment we thought would originally go by ground, move it back to Bagram or Kandahar, and then fly it out.”

Also in Phase 2, planners with the 1st TSC planned for the end of ORT, in preparation for ORS.

Planners expected between five and 15 U.S. military bases left in Afghanistan at the start of ORS. Additionally, the president had said there would be 9,800 “boots on the ground” to conduct that mission. “It’s a very de-scoped U.S. presence,” Gamble said.

At the time, the 1st TSC was thinking of the future, to the end of OEF and the start of ORS.

Soldiers from the 349th Quartermaster Company, attached to the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based 82nd Sustainment Brigade-U.S. Central Command Materiel Recovery Element, use a pallet jack to move boxes of supplies at the Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, retrosort yard. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Army 82nd SB-CMRE Public Affairs, by Sgt. 1st Class Jon Cupp]


What kind of retrograde and base deconstruction forces would we need? “The challenge in September 2013 was planning for the uncertain future that was going to come in about 14 months,” Gamble said. “We intuitively knew that we had to plan for reduced forces and force management levels well ahead of any political decisions that would be made.”

Another critical aspect of Phase 2 of ORT involved changing the way subordinate units conducted opera-tions and the way the bureaucracy that manages complex operations is conducted.

Tactically, Gamble said the 1st TSC had to change the procedures and processes that served Afghanistan very well for the last six to eight years of operation there. The bureaucracy—the processes, business rules and standard operating procedures that had served the Army well dur-ing the surge in Afghanistan and after—would no longer be good enough.

Additionally, he said, the 401st Army Field Sup-port Brigade—mostly a contracted capability—wasn’t designed to conduct retrograde operations at the pace required by ODB. He likened adjusting the mission of the AFSB from supporting and equipping counterinsurgency operations to conducting retro-grade operations at a pace never before achieved in Afghanistan to turning around an aircraft carrier. In September 2013, the 1st TSC, with the help of ASC and AMC began the work to make that happen.

“When an aircraft carrier is cutting across the ocean going full bore—it’s going so fast the flags on deck are cracking in the wind. It’s an impressive display of American military power,” he said. “But then you put it in a harbor, where it can’t use its own engines. You have these worn out tugboats bumping it in the hull to turn it around.”

Small, individually ineffective efforts—like that of a single tug-boat—is what Gamble said the 1st TSC had been trying to do to get the AFSB “turned around” and transitioned from supplying a war fight to deconstructing a war fight.

“It took us two months to make that happen,” Gamble said. A return to “full steam ahead” for the 401st AFSB, in terms of chang-ing its mission, meant strengthening the transportation part of its contracted capabilities.

“It wasn’t until late in Phase 2 that I came to the realization that it’s really the contractor that does the transportation processing,” he said. “We needed to modify the contract and put more capacity in there.”

He said it took all of Phase 2—from September 2013 to January 2014 to make that change happen, but the broader logistics enter-prise rose to the task. AMC not only modified the contract but also deployed military and civilian transportation experts to quickly get to the required retrograde velocity.

Finally, Gamble said, a critical aspect of adjusting operations in Afghanistan to facilitate retrograde operations involved what is now called “enhanced options for cargo retrograde,” shortening the time it takes to get equipment out of theater.

“We were operating in a system that assumes you have 60 days from the time you turn in until the time you can ship,” Gamble said. “But one day, we’re not going to have 60 days. So that day is probably November 1, 2014. So what are we going to do when we don’t have 60 days? We needed a different process.”

Gamble said that the 1st TSC worked with U.S. Transportation Command and U.S. Central Command, letting them know there

needed to be a change to the way “strategic transportation” happened out of theater.

“We set out to practice that in November and December 2013,” he said. “We set out to pretend that December 31, 2013 was December 31, 2014, and that we had a hard deadline stop.”

It took time to develop the agreement, but a new, accelerated process was necessary. By the end of Phase 2 of ORT, he said, they conducted an “accelerated retrograde proof-of-principle,” setting up a “channel flight” to Kuwait.

“The big phenomenal difference in Phase 2 was not only the prog-ress we made getting toward the end, but the procedural changes, the increase in the transportation capacity of the 401st AFSB, the changing of how we did strategic transportation,” he said. “We set up Kuwait as what we call an ‘equipment intermediate staging base,’ so we could fly equipment out of Afghanistan and hand it off to the 402nd AFSB that we have there.”

Phase 3 of ODB and ORT began in January 2014, while Phase 4 of the operation began in July 2014. Operations in both phases were spearheaded by Major General Jeffry Colt, USFOR-A deputy commanding general for sustainment and Brigadier General Flem B. “Donnie” Walker Jr., commanding general, 3d Sustainment Com-mand (Expeditionary) and deputy commanding general for 1st TSC, Afghanistan. O

C. Todd Lopez, a DoD civilian, writes for the Army News Service and serves as the deputy chief of ARNEWS.

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part series highlighting 1st Sustainment Command (Theater) and its subordinate units’ con-tributions to the historical retrograde effort in Afghanistan during Operation Reliable Tempo. The 1st Sustainment Command (Theater) provides Single Sustainment Mission Command to Army, Joint and Multinational Forces in support of U.S. Central Command Unified Land Operations in order to enable the combatant commander’s ability to prevent, shape and win our nation’s wars.

An automated logistics specialist for the 349th Quartermaster Company, attached to the 82nd Sustainment Brigade-U.S. Central Command Materiel Recovery Element, uses a rough terrain container handler to stack containers full of equipment at the Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan retrosort yard. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Army 82nd SB-CMRE Public Affairs, by Sgt. 1st Class Jon Cupp]


at www.mlf-kmi.com.


Rugged devices are essential for military personnel. Laptops deployed in the field or in theater are used for a variety of mission-criti-cal operations and often subjected to a variety of challenging environmental conditions.

“As the Army continues to evaluate and now field small form factor, handheld and tablet-based technologies that are touch-screen-centric, it is essential that the systems can hold up in austere environments in high operational tempo situations,” remarked Paul D. Mehney, U.S. Army Program Executive Office C3T, director, Public Affairs.

The operational scenario drives the requirements for the systems. “For instance, if a tablet is mounted in a vehicle, the require-ment may be for a rugged system with shock and vibration requirements,” he said. “But if the system is a handheld, the requirements are most likely going to be greater given the system is not mounted and has the potential to be dropped or encounter damp environ-ments.”

Devices need to sustain drops, falls, bad weather, dust/dirt, vibration from use in heli-copters, boats and land vehicles, or other difficult conditions. Ruggedized technology, particularly personal technology like note-books and tablets meant to enhance mobility, is critical to ensure consistent uptime so ser-vicemembers can accomplish their mission.

These notebooks are often deployed in locations where service and replacement parts can be challenging, so a notebook designed to withstand difficult conditions and extreme temperatures is required to deliver continuity of critical operations. Consequently, troops need a reliable device that can handle their environment so they can complete the job.

Consequently, Army programs of record and non developmental efforts are both work-ing with handheld and tablet vendors to ensure military modifications are made, if applicable.

rugged standards

DoD sets standards for mobile devices to meet levels of security and durability.

“The technical standards for a system are based on the operational requirements and the operational scenario in which the system will be used,” commented Mehney.

The Army’s Common Hardware Sys-tems effort, managed by Program Executive Office C3T, works with vendors to seek out applicable tablet and handheld capability for a variety of military customers.

MIL-STD-810G is the latest equipment testing standard for military devices.

“The Common Hardware Systems effort refers to the MIL-STD-810G, Environmen-tal Engineering Considerations and Labo-ratory Test standard when reviewing and assessing tactical hardware ruggedization and environmental specifications of a sys-tem,” explained Mehney. “This standard outlines roughly 30 environmental vari-ables that a military system may encounter and provides the baseline of systems environmental spec-ifications.”

They include items such as drop, water, vibration, extreme temperatures, dust, shock, solar, salt/fog and more to fully test a solution’s durability.

To become certified, devices must pass a variety of tests to determine how they will hold up during dif-ferent conditions such as extreme tempera-tures, vibration and impact. These tests are designed to confirm that every part of the device, from the screen to the keyboard to the internal components, can withstand the real-life situations in which servicemem-bers work.

In addition to the MIL STD 810G certi-fications, fully-rugged notebooks also meet other standards such as MIL STD 461F (emissions certification) and ANSI 12.12.01 for operation in potentially combustible hazardous locations. In addition, there are international standard IP (Ingress Protec-tion) ratings that classify how well electrical enclosures are protected against dust or

water. One such rating is the IP65 (water-resistant and dustproof).

“The Common Hardware Systems effort refers to the MIL-STD-810G, Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Test standard when reviewing and assessing tactical hardware ruggedization and environ-mental specifications of a system,” explained Mehney. “This standard outlines roughly 30 environmental variables that a military sys-tem may encounter and provides the baseline of systems environmental specifications.”

produCt oFFerings

Dell Rugged independently certifies its devices via a vendor-agnostic third party. “We post those results on dell.com/rugged to make sure not only that we’re being transpar-ent but also that we’re exceeding our cus-

tomers’ expectations for the durability of our products,” commented Patrick Seiden-sticker, director, Dell Rugged Mobility.

Dell Rugged incorporates a variety of technologies to ruggedize its notebooks and ensure consistent operation in challenging conditions.

“With regards to protec-tion against dust and water, we use a combination of com-

pression gasketing and knife-edged sealing techniques to secure the doors and main chassis areas,” Seidensticker explained.

For drops, shocks and vibration, the company relies on unique chassis materials, specific motherboard architecture and an external bumpering system. “For extreme temperatures, our fourth-generation quad-cool fan-based system ensures full system performance in temperatures ranging from below zero degrees Fahrenheit to over 140 degrees Fahrenheit,” he added. “Additionally, our LCDs are externally protected with an impact-resistant cover.”

Panasonic devices, which are currently being used by every branch of the US military,

By karen e. tHuerMer

MLF Correspondent

Laptops and taBLets get More rugged.

Patrick Seidensticker


Laptops and taBLets get More rugged.

come equipped with a fully-rugged, sealed design certified to meet MIL-STD-810G and IP65 specifications for resistance to drops up to 6 feet, water, dust and other elements.

Panasonic has introduced technology to make its laptops and tablets more durable and water- and drop-resistant. For one, the LCD screens on all of its rugged devices are sealed for water, and a strengthened glass that has higher resistance for drops and cracks is utilized. All displays that have a touchscreen, whether a laptop or tablet, use chemically strengthened glass. In addition, Panasonic uses screens that are brighter and look better in an outdoor environment while still providing rugged protection. Also mak-ing Panasonic devices more durable than other devices, regardless of their glass type, is the way that the company mounts its display and touch panel in the product.

“There are big differences between rug-gedized/durable devices on the market, and it is important for military personnel to under-stand which devices will serve them best on the job,” said James Poole, director of DoD sales, Panasonic System Communications Company of North America. “Any product can claim they are rugged or waterproof, but lose function after a drop or water spill.”

Those devices that are truly durable will be the ones that are military certified and have undergone all of the necessary testing to ensure they can perform under extreme circumstances. For that reason, Poole rec-ommends that any military agency purchas-ing a rugged laptop or tablet should always look for products that meet IP ratings and military standards. “And you should ask to see the test results,” he said.

More rugged detaiLs

Given military needs, suppliers are work-ing hard to provide more durable laptops and tablets whose screens are more drop- and water-resistant without increasing size, weight or cost significantly.

“We’ve learned a great deal through mul-tiple generations of rugged notebook design at Dell, and we’ve applied what we learned to develop and enhance the ruggedization of our notebooks without significantly adding weight and cost,” Seidensticker commented.

Case in point, Seidensticker points out that Dell’s latest generation of rugged notebooks are lighter and more cost-effec-tive than ever before. “We have a custom-designed research and development lab where we constantly subject our notebooks

to challenging conditions they would face in the field.” Engineering elements such as chassis design, chassis materials, cable management, thermal design and others significantly increase durability without sac-rificing weight.

“At Dell Rugged, we take a holistic view to notebooks designed for durability,” Seiden-sticker added. “That means we focus on all areas, including hinges, doors, handles, docking connectors, etc.”

Dell Rugged uses a test-to-fail methodology, so that although the company pub-lishes a MIL STD 810G report, its notebooks are tested and often exceed the posted speci-fications.

“Our goal is to design notebooks that survive and perform when subjected to conditions in the real world, not just to a list of rugged specifications,” Seidensticker emphasized.

Panasonic’s fully-rugged laptops and tab-lets are built using a magnesium alloy, which contributes to their durability without add-ing significant weight. Water resistance is provided by their fully-sealed designs, which does not significantly contribute to size, weight or cost.

“A key part of our product development strategy is to continue to improve product performance and durability and increased battery life while addressing the military’s need for lighter, smaller form factor devices,” remarked Poole.

Other approaches are ongoing to make laptops and tablets for military use more durable. One feature that Panasonic has been able to add in recent years is glove-enabled touchscreens. These allow servicemembers and other users to use the touchscreens on their laptops and tablets without removing their gloves, enabling them to be more pro-ductive out in the field.

“We also have enhanced our heat tech-nology,” added Poole. “We have reduced the thermal heat within our units while main-taining durability and resistance to water and dust.”

Future trends

The trend today is tablets and smaller platforms, with the military looking for lighter devices with faster performance. This means utilizing new, lighter and more dura-ble chassis materials.

In the past, a rugged device may have required a compromise on performance to improve durability, but now that gap is clos-ing.

“Today’s rugged devices have weights comparable to a consumer tablet while offer-ing the same level of performance,” reported Poole.

There’s also a continuing trend regard-ing storage options based on SSD technol-

ogy. “This technology has no moving parts, making devices more survivable than tradi-tional HDD design,” remarked Seidensticker.

Dell is also focusing on cycle testing of all moving parts in its notebooks. One example is the design of hinge elements that can deliver 150,000 cycles during the life of the notebook.

“Other areas that we are constantly engineering for refined perfor-mance include wireless capabilities, outdoor viewability, touchscreen operation, enhanced security of both the hardware and software resident on the deceives and docking compat-ibility across lines, just to name a few of these elements,” Seidensticker added.

Another new trend is rugged wearable device programs. “In the past, wearable com-puters were custom-built as a one-off design, but now integrators in all branches of the military are looking for a more rugged com-mercial solution that servicemembers can wear wherever their mission takes them,” Poole said.

Of course, there are increasingly more initiatives around security and higher levels of security standards. Poole points to the Opal Storage Specification, which is an important new standard for protecting critical data on hard drives.

Some areas of the military are using consumer-grade products, and have had dif-ficulties with product longevity and support. “Consumer-grade products only have the bare minimum of security standards and lack government-level information assurance,” commented Poole. “Ultimately, we’ve seen them return to the rugged enterprise-grade devices that can handle the job under virtu-ally any circumstance.” O

James Poole


at www.mlf-kmi.com.


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Chris HickeyVice President of Sustainment & Support Solutions

Elbit Systems of AmericaChris Hickey, vice president of sustain-

ment and support solutions for Elbit Systems of America, has over 25 years of experience in aerospace and technology industries.

Q: What does your company bring to the logistics table?

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Q: How are you enhancing your operations and business methodologies to keep in step with the DoD logistics enterprise?

A: Elbit Systems of America understands the pressures on the defense budget and the premium placed on sustainment of existing systems. We work closely with the operators and invest in research and development efforts to ensure products stay on plat-forms longer without losing performance. We have invested in upgrading our enter-prise resource planning tools to facilitate additional responsiveness to life cycle sus-tainment efforts ensuring the right product, right place and right time. Finally, we invest in our people through training and develop-ment with a focus on innovation and opera-tional excellence.

Q: What are your primary strategic goals for the next 12 months?

A: Simplification and fundamentals. Cus-tomers expect sustainable and available products and solutions delivered on time and within budget. Elbit Systems of Amer-ica’s innovation processes and procedures reduce costs and shorten lead times, while

performing early trades to ensure affordable sustainment options. DoD and commercial budgets are tight; we know we must provide best-value solutions which support mission sustainability while being fiscally respon-sible.

Q: What are some examples of how you work with the military?

A: We provide customer-centric, mission-ready, new and aftermarket logistics solu-tions to every service branch. From sensors and optics to displays and maintenance activities, our products and services touch a large variety of U.S. platforms. Additionally, Elbit Systems of America supports several nonprofit organizations, such as Wounded Warrior and Fisher House, to provide addi-tional resources to our soldiers.

Q: How would you characterize the com-pany’s performance recently, specifically in innovation and efficiency?

A: We place a high importance on innova-tion and efficiency. We recently launched our Dream, Design, Deliver initiative across the business to drive employee engagement in innovation and operational excellence.

Additionally, Elbit Systems of America aids DoD in stretching the defense budget dollar through value engineering change proposals from its repair and overhaul cen-ter of excellence located in Talladega, Ala., which is upgrading the USAF F-16 heads-up displays. Working closely with the customer to infuse state-of-the-art technology into an existing chassis, we were able to improve the mean time between failure rates while reducing life cycle costs.

Our San Antonio, Texas, facility provides worldwide contractor logistics support to a

multitude of land and air platforms. Incorpo-rating Lean and Six Sigma tenets into every CLS facet allows us to obtain 95-plus percent mission-capable rates while receiving blue and purple contractor performance assess-ment reporting at competitive rates.

Q: How important are industry partnerships in meeting your corporate objectives?

A: Public and private partnerships are an important aspect of doing business with the U.S. government. Changes within DoD and budget pressures are driving competitors to partner to offer best-in-class solutions which are scalable and affordable to the customer. Partnerships free up resources to bring new products and solutions to market.

Elbit Systems of America has partner-ships with many major tier-one, two and three OEMs. This allows us to work in an integrated product team environment pro-viding solutions to meet customer expecta-tions quickly and efficiently. Elbit Systems of America has several public partnerships with DoD depots enabling organic repair and overhaul capabilities to be shared by the government and ensuring efficient use of facilities, personnel and resources.

Q: Are there improvements you would like to see made that would streamline the con-tracting process?

A: Better Buying Power 3.0 is a government contracting process improvement, but chal-lenges remain. Tighter budgets put additional pressure on realizing the real benefits of best-value contracting. In today’s competitive environment, it is easy for the contracting process to align to a low-price acceptable solution. Unfortunately, low-price, techni-cally acceptable solutions can increase risk and reduce performance, which can result in significantly higher life cycle costs. Industry needs to do its part by providing DoD cus-tomers best-value solutions which align to mission success instead of taking on more risk to achieve lowest price. A low-cost tech-nically acceptable solution not available upon demand can result in additional costs. O

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INDUSTRY INTERVIEW Military Logistics Forum


Client: ATECAd Title: Blackhawk/ApachePublication: Military Logitics Forum - March - Issue #2Trim: 8.375” x 10.875” • Bleed: 1/4” beyond trim • Live: 1/4” inside trim

Army troops in the fight for freedom deserve the best support we can offer. The Army’s

Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) will make sure they get it, specifying new combat

performance, capability and efficiency standards for Black Hawk and Apache helicopters.

ATEC’s HPW3000 engine will provide increased power, enhanced dependability, rapid

start capability, increased payload, and improved high/hot performance. With greater

range. Burning less fuel. Saving billions of dollars. Learn more about the ITEP engine

program and the HPW3000 Engine at ATECPower.net.

BRINGING MORE POWER TO THEIR MISSION.

IT WILL SAVE LIVES.IT WILL SAVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.THERE’S NEVER BEEN AN ENGINE LIKE IT.

26646_ATEC_BlackhawkApache_MilLogForum.indd 1 3/2/15 2:12 PM

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MLF 9.2 (March 2015)