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Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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Overview

The Standing Committee on Defense Materials Manufacturing and Infrastructure (DMMI) conducted a workshop on July 23 and 24, 2012, to share information and gather perspectives on issues concerning materials and manufacturing capabilities for sustaining defense systems. This workshop, held at the headquarters building of the National Academies on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., was conducted according to the procedures of the National Research Council (NRC) for convening such an activity. By these procedures, all workshop participants—including presenters, members of the DMMI standing committee, Reliance 21, invited guests, and visitors—spoke as individuals, and no overall findings, conclusions, or recommendations were developed during or as a result of the workshop. All statements and views summarized in this publication are attributable only to the individuals who expressed them. It is worthwhile noting that the sponsor, Reliance 21, is a Department of Defense (DOD) group of professionals that was established to enable the DOD science and technology (S&T) community to work together to enhance DOD S&T programs, eliminate unwarranted duplication, and strengthen cooperation among the military services and other DOD agencies.

The DMMI appointed a workshop planning group to develop the workshop agenda and decide on invited guests and presenters, in accordance with the statement of task approved by the Governing Board of the NRC (Appendix A). The planning group also consulted with the Reliance 21 materials and processing community of interest. The workshop participants, who included a number of members of this Reliance 21 community of interest, are listed in Appendix B. Appendix C is the workshop agenda and Appendix D spells out the acronyms used here.

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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The planning group’s role was limited to planning the workshop, and the workshop summary was prepared by the workshop rapporteur as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop.

The presentations and discussions during the workshop are summarized sequentially in the main part of this report as “Workshop Presentations and Discussions.” As an aid to readers, the rapporteur has identified nine themes that recurred in multiple presentations and discussions:

1. Parts Obsolescence: Dealing with Diminishing Manufacturing Sources for Parts and Components

2. Counterfeit Parts and Nonconforming Materials: Issues and Potential Solutions

3. Strategies to Deal with Materials Shortages

4. Easing the Transition from System Acquisition to System Sustainment

5. Enabling the Cradle-to-Grave Digital Thread for Materials, Parts, and Components of Systems

6. Transitioning to Condition-Based Maintenance

7. Government–Industry Information Sharing and Partnering to Sustain Defense Systems

8. Research Topics for Sustainment Science and Technology

9. Policy Obstacles to and Enablers for Meeting System Sustainment Challenges

These themes were also described in the open discussion before the close of the workshop, when discussion leader Steven Wax asked the participants for comments, in light of all the presentations and discussions, on unmet needs and unresolved big issues in the areas of sustainment, replication/obsolescence, and counterfeits. The discussion resulted in the following outline of needs and issues suggested by one or more participants. The individual items in this outline were not discussed in depth during the session and do not reflect any consensus among the workshop participants but can serve the reader as another source of material from the workshop.

UNRESOLVED LARGE ISSUES

Sustainment

• From cost curves for sustainment, it appears that savings from implementation of improved sustainment could be used to move new sustainment technologies from TRL/MRL 6 to TRL/MRL 9.1 However, use of such

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1 MRL, Manufacturing Readiness Level. Nine MRLs are defined in AFSAB, 2011, p. 152.

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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   savings has to be consistent with DOD business practices and culture, including financial management practices.

• The transition from initial design and production to depot and field maintainers is difficult and needs attention.

• What is lacking for accurate forecasts of maintenance/sustainment needs?

—Tools to do assessment in the field; one example is handheld tools to facilitate capture of status data at the time that maintenance is done.

—Better tools to provide more complete data that could reduce mission-incapable (MICAP) hours and time in depot.

—Remote inspection technologies that do not require dismantling platforms to get access.

—Means to address the cost of getting nondestructive evaluation technologies through engineering development.

• Which data should be captured to have a digital data thread adequate for life-cycle sustainment?

• What policy and implementation can be considered for DOD purchase of data rights?

• Sustainment (maintenance) S&T in areas such as corrosion and inspection:

—What is it? How should sustainment S&T be defined?

—Not all sustainment S&T is maintenance-oriented. It should also include upgrading as part of sustainment.

—Improved fundamental understanding of corrosion (6.1 research) could enable design to mitigate corrosion rather than the trial-and-error approach of screening coatings. The problem is similar for cracking.

—Value of doing S&T—why is funding for sustainment S&T hard to get? What are incentives for doing it?

—Improve transitioning of S&T results to practice (e.g., make better engineering trade-offs using existing technology).

—Distinguish between funding to develop new technologies for sustainment and funding the application of existing and new technologies to real-world problems.

• Cost/benefit models to explore policy and technology alternatives:

—Issue: DOD systems are not bought on the basis of their life-cycle cost.

• Need technology solutions that are consistent with how DOD does business and how programs are funded.

—Proposed solutions need to be viable in the current system.

—How much culture change is necessary to transition from current practice to better sustainment methodology? What can the military services and DOD do to change the culture?

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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—Are issues with sustainment more often leadership issues than technical or materiel issues?

Replication/Obsolescence

• Vulnerability assessment methodology.

• Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) models and war games.

• Possible solution: replace worn parts with substitute parts instead of hard-to-find or manufacturer-original parts.

• Need for rapid, low-cost certification of replacement material and parts.

• Integrated computational materials for engineering (ICME).

• Trusted production—for example, the Trusted Supplier Program of the –Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) and in-house production options.

Counterfeit Parts and Materials

• The problem of nonconforming parts is growing rapidly. Do we know enough to put disincentives in place to limit deliberate introduction or acceptance of nonconforming materials and parts?

• Policy, regulation, risk analytics (e.g., U.S. Food and Drug Administration). Down to which level in the supply chain? What are or should be the disincentives for counterfeiting or misrepresenting materials or parts?

• Trusted sources

—Even with trusted sources, DOD will still need validation for malicious components.

—Availability of trusted foundry/supplier participants to support commercial users as well as DOD?

—Trusted sources and verification/validation testing need to go deeper than Tier 1 suppliers.

• Low-cost, more effective testing (electrical, mechanical?) needed to do a better job of catching counterfeits.

—Technical means are needed for validation/verification of parts. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) programs—Trust in Integrated Circuits (TRUST) and Integrity and Reliability of Integrated Circuits (IRIS)—can demonstrate proof of concept, but their products face a “valley of death” and many will not transition to implementation.

—Risk analytics might help with decisions on which technology developments (such as the DARPA TRUST and IRIS results) are worth implementation.

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

—A stronger procedural response is needed for the detection of reporting to community, forward and backward tracking through the supply chain.

• System-level testing methods are needed, including boards and lower-level components (resistors, diodes).

Highlights of participants’ comments during the workshop on these themes are presented below; these highlights should not be interpreted as consensus statements from the workshop or the DMMI standing committee.

THEME 1

PARTS OBSOLESCENCE: DEALING WITH DIMINISHING MANUFACTURING SOURCES FOR PARTS AND COMPONENTS

Parts obsolescence is an issue when the lifetime of a system is much longer than the availability of spare components for that system. This can occur when either the manufacturer of the component no longer exists or when the components are frequently updated or changed by the manufacturer such as in the electronics industry. Today, not many solutions exist for solving this problem. Some efforts involve buying the last parts before they no longer are available, while other efforts seek to replace the part with other similar parts.

Currently, using a part, component, or subsystem in a system (such as an aircraft or other weapons platform) different from the one for which it was qualified or certified requires requalifying/recertifying it for the system(s) of potential use. Similarly, materials and parts/components need requalification or recertification when the raw materials used in them or their manufacturing processes change. While workshop participants understood the rationale for this requirement, which is necessary to ensure that functionality and reliability are not affected by such substitutions and changes, a number of participants saw it as an R&D challenge to find ways to decrease the cost and time required for appropriate qualification/ certification of substitutes.

One participant, who is a materials scientist, said that even the smallest changes in material composition from what was used in a part originally could, in principle, drastically change structure at some scale, which in turn could alter properties that affect the function of that part.

One suggestion was to pursue new approaches to standardization of specifications. Dianne Chong of Boeing noted that variability in specifications for very similar applications of what seem to be identical parts is a problem for commercial-sector manufacturers that have merged operations or have acquired other companies, not just a problem for DOD. She suggested that a single system for recording and main-taining

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

parts specifications could help with this aspect of the obsolescence problem. The goal would be to share (across DOD or a commercial enterprise, or even more widely across the aerospace community) a common set of qualification and certification requirements for the same physical part in essentially similar applications.

Royce Smith of the 448th Supply Chain Management Wing, U.S. Air Force, made the case for proactively managing diminishing manufacturing sources and materials shortages rather than reactively addressing shortages after they occur. He described how the Air Force is using the Advanced Component Obsolescence Management (AVCOM) system to monitor and plan for parts obsolescence in Air Force legacy systems. A key step is loading complete parts information for an aircraft subsystem into AVCOM. Once that relatively complex step is complete, AVCOM can produce alerts on impending obsolescence, analyses of possible form/ fit/function replacements for an obsolescent part, analyses for all end items in the inventory that are affected by an obsolete part, and other kinds of reports. For parts with no current manufacturers and no logistics solution established yet, the next step is an analysis and resolution process. Unfortunately, the process of loading subsystem information into AVCOM has to be prioritized because of funding constraints, so not all subsystems of all legacy aircraft have so far been represented.

Dr. Chong said that, in her experience at Boeing, the time required to find another supplier of a discontinued part depends on many factors, but often identifying a potential supplier is fairly quick; it takes longer to certify the supplier and/or the replacement product. Boeing is actively investigating computation-based tools that would lessen the amount of testing required to certify a replacement; most of these tools and the development of associated testing techniques are intended for certifying structural materials rather than electronic parts.

The workshop participants briefly discussed the potential for three-printing technology to provide critical parts when the normal supply pipeline is disrupted. Among the several challenges that some participants saw in this as a solution to parts obsolescence were that (1) a part produced this way would still need to be qualified or certified and (2) the appropriately qualified raw material has to be available.

THEME 2

COUNTERFEIT PARTS AND NONCONFORMING MATERIALS: ISSUES AND POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

Most of the presentations and discussion at the workshop used the term “counterfeit part” in a sense consistent with the definition used by the industry consensus standard (SAE AS 5553), which includes used parts sold as new, as well as parts that had part numbers changed and unauthorized copies of the authentic

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

part. Carl McCants from DARPA said that he preferred the term “nonconforming part,” which he understood to include both counterfeit parts as defined by the industry standard and imperfectly fabricated parts from a licensed manufacturer. Bryan Benesch told the workshop that, for the FDA, a counterfeit product is more narrowly and requires that the counterfeit item use the brand name or other trademark/service mark identifiers owned by the makers of authentic items.

None of the participants spoke of known cases of counterfeit parts where the motivation of the counterfeiter was “malicious” in the sense of deliberately seeking to cause system performance failure or to infiltrate the system to obtain information or control in some way. Several participants who had dealt with cases of counterfeit parts said the motivation seemed to be the economic value of supplying the demand for an otherwise hard-to-find part. However, the prospect and feasibility of malicious intent were raised by many of the participants at various times during the workshop. Dr. McCants made a general argument for careful consideration of malicious intent in counterfeit hardware parts because of the increasing integration of hardware systems into all kinds of networks, many of which are known to have experienced cyberattacks or have been shown to be vulnerable to such attacks.

Joseph Bryan, who was the lead staff member on the investigation by the Armed Services Committee of counterfeit electronic parts in the DOD supply chain, summarized the investigation and its major findings and recommendations (Committee on Armed Services, 2012). The investigation identified about 1,800 cases of suspect counterfeits involving more than a million counterfeit parts. Most of the counterfeits identified by the committee were previously used parts that had been removed from assemblies and circuit boards and resold as new parts. The investigators found that DOD lacked knowledge of the scope and impact of counterfeit parts on critical defense systems. The investigation also revealed that DOD and large defense contractors were not keeping track of counterfeit parts they found. The committee relied on testing companies used by defense contractors and their suppliers for much of their information. Neither commercial users nor DOD agencies were routinely reporting instances of counterfeiting found by their independent testers.

In all four cases of counterfeit microprocessor chips described by Scott Fish (Army chief scientist), the routine performance tests performed at several points in the supply chain failed to detect the anomalies. This makes the problem of identifying and dealing with counterfeits very tricky, he said.

Several participants discussed recent cases of nonconforming materials (materials that did not meet the composition, formulation, or processing specifications under which they were acquired by the purchaser), such as the titanium used to fabricate certain aircraft parts. Katherine Stevens of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and other participants noted the importance of building and maintaining

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

a system of trusted suppliers as one approach for dealing with nonconforming materials, as well as for avoiding counterfeit parts.

Dr. Fish described proactive actions the Army is taking to address the counterfeit parts problem (in addition to the remedial actions taken when a counterfeit part is identified and has been used in fielded systems). An initial risk management capability for supply chain issues includes increased attention on the government side and increased diligence on the part of prime contractors and their suppliers in testing parts for performance compliance. The Army is also working with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) on a Trusted Supplier Standard.

As one participant noted, the issues with counterfeit parts and materials discussed at this workshop seemed to fall into two categories: (1) the quality of the counterfeit part and the risk of negative performance consequences resulting from poor quality relative to an authentic part and (2) the risk of malicious intent, including the addition of functionality to a counterfeit part or deliberate alteration to remove or compromise functionality. This participant added that solutions useful for the first category might be inadequate for the second category. A second participant agreed with the difficulty of addressing malicious addition or changes to functionality, adding that overreliance on standards and on testing to those standards could create complacency about the security of the supply chain.

Another participant thought that the alternative to having an error-proof way to detect functionality that has been added to a counterfeit part, which seems extremely difficult to guarantee against, is to have a trusted network of suppliers. But, this participant added, a trusted supplier network probably requires a combination of technology and policy approaches (see Theme 9). Robert Schafrik described the intensive information-sharing and partnering process GE uses to establish and maintain its trusted supplier relationships. Daniel Marrujo described the role of DMEA as the accreditation authority for DOD’s Trusted Foundry Initiative and responded to numerous questions from other participants about the initiative and how it might be expanded to deal with sustainment issues including parts obsolescence as well as counterfeit parts.

The status of testing for “added functionality” in electronic parts was raised early in the workshop. The only presentation that addressed current capability or current R&D for such testing was Dr. McCants’s account of DARPA’s TRUST and IRIS programs.

THEME 3

STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH MATERIALS SHORTAGES

Robert Schafrik summarized the technical argument, as reported in the peer-reviewed literature, that upward trends in the global demand for metals, combined

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

with downward trends in the quality of metal ores, support the conclusion that users in both defense and commercial applications should anticipate increased cost, decreased availability, and increased risks of supply disruptions.

Dr. Schafrik believes an analogous argument can be made for other, nonmetal raw materials and agrees with the position that reactive responses, after a materials supply threat occurs, should be replaced by a proactive strategy.

A proactive strategy can begin by anticipating the risk of a shortage. It would apply a staged approach to responding, starting with identifying alternative sourcing solutions but continuing with increasing manufacturing efficiencies (less waste of the raw material), recycling, substituting alternative material(s), and substituting alternative technologies (systems) that do not require the material. Dr. Schafrik then moved from the general concept of a proactive strategy to describe the particular approach used by his company, GE, to develop technical risk reduction programs for materials with high criticality for the company.

Dr. Chong described processes used at Boeing for managing materials shortage and parts obsolescence risks that were broadly similar to the proactive strategy Dr. Schafrik described.

Dr. Fish gave examples of recent Army experiences with material shortages that were significant enough to come to his attention at Army Headquarters. In some instances, limited-duration shortages due to unexpected production losses were handled by drawing down reserve stocks. Other cases involved major price increases from the single domestic supplier, no domestic supplier, or a supplier base that was unable to meet demand. He said the Army does not presume that all production of a defense-critical chemical or material must be domestic, but there have to be adequate controls in place on both production and supply to ensure that requirements are met. He also suggested that relying on a sole source for a critical material must be paired with a program to stockpile sufficient reserves to cover an interim supply shortage.

Temporary material shortages can also occur when production capability is transferred from one supplier to another, either because the original supplier sells a product line to another company or because the customer initiates a change in supplier. To address this cause of temporary shortages, one participant suggested that a best practice would be for any supplier to notify customers when it was initiating any disruption in supply capability. This prior notice would allow customers to increase inventory in advance of the potential disruption.

The participants discussed whether the new Sector by Sector, Tier by Tier (S2T2) program in DOD will provide a tool for assessing the services’ supply vulnerabilities. A participant familiar with the program noted that there are policy constraints on how the database can be accessed, to protect a supplier’s competitive position and proprietary information.

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

THEME 4

EASING THE TRANSITION FROM SYSTEM ACQUISITION TO SYSTEM SUSTAINMENT

System acquisition and the process of designing, developing, and putting some new asset into use are very different from system sustainment, where maintenance and service of the asset is the main focus. It is clear that with sustainment also come issues related to parts obsolescence and an increased risk of counterfeit parts, as well as potential materials shortages. One of the most demanding challenges, according to Dr. Stevens of AFRL, is transitioning technology from the system development and acquisition world to the sustainment world.

In the first open discussion session, this challenge was articulated by one participant in the following questions: Are there materials or manufacturing technologies that inherently make parts more transferable between systems and applications? What can be done on the production or processing side to make long-term sustainment easier, including easing the problems that occur when an original manufacturer goes out of business or can no longer supply parts? Without exposing proprietary information, what processing information would help a subsequent manufacturer?

Another comment during the same discussion was that sustainment contractors often do not have the resource base, including personnel with appropriate expertise, to provide the level of problem analysis and resolution that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) provide. Maintenance depot personnel—both government personnel and contractors—prefer to work from technical orders that are written like step-by-step recipes.

Alan Eckbreth noted that the study team for the advisory report Sustaining Air Force Aging Aircraft into the 21st Century had defined “sustainment” as the combination of operations and maintenance (O&M) and modifications for upgraded performance (AFSAB, 2011, p. vi). He explained the significance of that definition with respect to applying new technology approaches in the context of how Congress appropriates funding for O&M separately from funding for modernization. Both Dr. Eckbreth and Dr. Stevens used data from that study showing that O&M costs for the Air Force fleet have nearly doubled in the past 14 years, even though total aircraft inventory has continued to decline. The study also argued for use of key sustainment effectiveness metrics other than cost alone, such as aircraft availability divided by cost (AA/$). Dr. Eckbreth described a number of findings and concomitant recommendations from the AFSAB study that could help ease the transition to sustainment.

Dr. Stevens said that AFRL’s vision for the future is to move from the current linear paradigm for the material life cycle—in which materials and processes

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

research leads sequentially through materials development, component design, component testing, certification/qualification, manufacturing, and sustainment—to an integrated sustainment paradigm in which all these stages in the life cycle are being examined interactively and in parallel. The manufacturing portion of this integrated life-cycle approach includes a concept called “moving manufacturing to the left” (addressing manufacturing issues early in the R&D process) and a digital data collection and archiving component called the “cradle-to-grave digital thread.” The objective of the former is to enable earlier development of game-changing products and manufacturing process technologies. The objective of the cradle-to-grave digital thread is to develop and employ digital environments and tools that increase efficiencies in all stages of the life cycle.

THEME 5

ENABLING THE CRADLE-TO-GRAVE DIGITAL THREAD FOR MATERIALS, PARTS, AND COMPONENTS OF SYSTEMS

As noted under Theme 4, the digital data collection portion of AFRL’s integrated life-cycle approach to sustainment is called the “cradle-to-grave digital thread.” But beyond this particular AFRL initiative, a number of workshop participants were interested in and commented on both the challenges of and the potential approaches for implementing a digital data environment that would capture relevant data throughout the system life cycle and make it available for sustainment activities.

Several participants noted the challenge of capturing adequate design and manufacturing data and documentation from the OEMs during system development and acquisition so that they will remain available even after a part or component goes out of production. Information on the manufacturing process, not just CAD/CAM designs, is being lost. Some participants noted that this challenge is not unique to the Air Force. A problem raised several times in different ways by various participants was knowing what information from the initial development and production phases needs to be captured to make downstream sustainment easier. One participant noted that much is still not understood about the knowledge, as well as the data, necessary to replicate a part or provide for sustainment over an extended system life cycle. Dr. Stevens said that capturing nondestructive evaluation/inspection (NDE/I) data for individual systems as they go through maintenance during their operational lives is also an essential part of the cradle-to-grave digital thread concept.

During an open discussion session, one participant suggested that a relevant policy question is whether DOD should (1) attempt to buy the technical data sufficient to maintain a “digital data thread” and store those data in an engineering

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

data repository or (2) look to OEMs to maintain that information and buy it back as a service. Would a DOD data repository be as complete and accurate as the data OEMs would maintain? One response to this suggestion was that it is important for DOD to get the technical data rights up front because an OEM might not remain in business, or, if it is sold, it might not be bought by another DOD supplier that could retain the data to make it available.

Several participants also noted a number of current efforts, such as the ManTech programs in OSD and the Army, to overcome or at least ameliorate some of these problems for implementing the digital data thread vision.

THEME 6

TRANSITIONING TO CONDITION-BASED MAINTENANCE

Condition-based maintenance is maintenance where the traditional form of scheduled maintenance at regular intervals is replaced by maintenance when needed. To determine when maintenance is needed, an indicator such as declining performance is measured and maintenance is performed when a predetermined reduction in performance is reached. According to Dr. Stevens, moving to condition-based maintenance is one way to improve Air Force fleet health management. Currently, the Air Force depots are moving increasingly in the direction of high-velocity maintenance, which will allow flight systems to be turned around and returned to operational availability more rapidly. Inspection techniques, lifing methods, and data acquisition technology are being developed to enable condition-based maintenance rather than replacement based on time in use or the like. Data from the design, production, and operational maintenance phases of the system life cycle are necessary to enable condition-based maintenance, said Dr. Stevens. She later noted that having a digital representation of each physical system (e.g., each aircraft) would be very beneficial to condition-based life management.

The study that Dr. Eckbreth chaired found that lack of quality and consistency in parts replacement on the part of the Air Logistics Centers (ALCs) makes it difficult to accurately forecast supply chain needs. Some of the R&D recommendations from that study (see Theme 8) are relevant to paving the way for condition-based maintenance. It should be noted, however, that for some Air Force platforms deployed to remote locations, a proactive replacement approach where parts are regularly replaced according to a schedule might be more appropriate from both mission success and cost standpoints.

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

THEME 7

GOVERNMENT–INDUSTRY INFORMATION SHARING AND PARTNERING TO SUSTAIN DEFENSE SYSTEMS

Participants discussed the extent to which industry best practices for dealing with the problems reflected in Themes 1 through 6 could be shared across the defense supplier community and might be of value to DOD as well. Are there industry best practices in supplier management and manufacturing data capture that could be adopted or adapted by DOD as better ways to do business? Industry consensus standards, including the process by which such standards are developed, maintained, and revised as necessary, were one principal example used by several participants of a best practice to emulate in addressing sustainment problems.

Royce Smith described the Shared Data Warehouse (SDW), an information system supported by the Defense Logistics Agency to capture and share information about parts that are going out of stock from an established supplier. According to Mr. Smith, SDW allows the military services to buy extra inventory of a part before it goes out of production. The Air Force hub for the SDW, which is in Mr. Smith’s organization, consolidates estimates of how many parts are nearing obsolescence at each ALC and sends one requisition to the Defense Logistics Agency. He sees tools like SDW as the principal way to avoid parts obsolescence by buying sufficient inventory before production of the part ends. Other participants suggested that the SDW concept could be expanded to include more of DOD, defense prime contractors, or even the wider aerospace industrial community.

Bringing government and industry together in partnerships such as the new Army Cooperative Research Alliances for multiscale and microstructured materials was suggested as a way to attack sustainment problems.

The Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) is a “multi-agency initiative designed to create a new era of policy, resources, and infrastructure that support U.S. institutions in the effort to discover, manufacture, and deploy advanced materials twice as fast, at a fraction of the cost” (NSTC, 2012). Even though MGI has focused on the program’s objectives of using new materials in new applications, both Dr. Stevens (Air Force) and Dr. Fish (Army chief scientist) saw it as potentially having rich applications to sustainment issues such as those discussed at the workshop.

The trusted supplier relationships of companies like GE and Boeing should be partnerships between supplier and customer rather than adversarial relationships. Participants familiar with how industry handles these relationships noted that the military, as the customer, must follow through on protecting its suppliers’ proprietary

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

and competitive information. They thought that government customers would have a great deal of difficulty maintaining that kind of relationship because of acquisition requirements for competitive contracting. Participants brought up other similarities and differences between DOD–supplier relationships and commercial industry relationships.

THEME 8

RESEARCH TOPICS FOR SUSTAINMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The study chaired by Dr. Eckbreth on sustaining the Air Force fleet recommended increased funding for sustainment S&T because those investments are critical to reducing maintenance costs. The increased funding would result from a rebalancing of the AFRL portfolio to better align it with the fleet composition in the near to mid future. Maintenance S&T requires increased emphasis in order to contribute to life extension, expedited inspections, and reduced touch labor (AFSAB, 2011). The recommended areas for fundamental research included (1) testing for corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and accelerated aging; (2) fuel leak detection and prevention; (3) wiring fault detection; and (4) research in software verification and validation, self-describing code, software readability interoperability, and other software sustainment areas. The report also discussed specific maintenance technologies that the study team considered to have crosscutting benefits for improving fleet maintenance and sustainment. It argued that approaches to transition technologies with promising returns on investment need to be adopted to realize the benefits of S&T advances in these areas (AFSAB, 2011).

During the discussion following Dr. Eckbreth’s presentation, several participants described actions that AFRL is taking to address the recommendations of his study and others. They also noted that feasibility of the recommended maintenance and sustainment S&T in an era of constrained DOD and Air Force budgets is still being assessed.

THEME 9

POLICY OBSTACLES TO AND ENABLERS FOR MEETING SYSTEM SUSTAINMENT CHALLENGES

The participants discussed whether S&T solutions for the system sustainment challenges highlighted above could be separated from changes in current policy and DOD and military service culture. Many of them expressed skepticism that purely S&T approaches could in and of themselves effectively meet the challenge.

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
×

Several participants even noted that, based on past experience, advisory recommendations to DOD or individual services that addressed technology solutions only were highly unlikely to be implemented. Technology R&D recommendations, they argued, should instead be presented in the context of current business models and practices in DOD, including funding processes linked to congressional appropriations. Throughout the workshop, and particularly in the question and discussion periods, various participants commented on linkages between potential technology approaches and policy or culture issues that would have to be addressed to make the technology approach effective.

Several participants described how de facto responsibility for key decisions that affect downstream (after system acquisition) availability of parts and materials, environmental issues, and other sustainment challenges has shifted over time, from systems engineering offices within DOD and military service program offices to the prime contractors. One participant thought that the new Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) could help bring some of that responsibility, as well as the engineering expertise to exercise it, back within the Air Force. However, other comments were more pessimistic about the likelihood of the trend reversing, given budget constraints and the necessity of finding acquisition cost savings.

In describing the challenge of transitioning systems from acquisition to sustainment (see Theme 4), Dr. Stevens said that different views on which organization is responsible for transitioning the technology into sustainment applications are part of the challenge, but problems related to how expenditures are categorized for appropriations (which costs can be covered out of which pot of money) are at least as important. Another participant suggested that Extended Availability of Funds Authority, if it could be applied to cost savings from improvements in sustainment practices and technology, might help ease funding constraints. Other participants remarked on the difficulty of planning and implementing a long-term program for more efficient and effective sustainment of legacy systems when the funding for such sustainment activities was short term (1-year funding for some types of sustainment activities).

In response to the discussion of recycling scarce material as one response to material shortages, one participant recounted how current DOD regulations led to abandonment of what had been a successful program for recycling the rhenium-containing alloys in replaced Air Force jet engines and engine parts. Another participant contrasted that policy constraint with commercial industry practices that enable the same parts to be fully recycled.

Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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Suggested Citation:"Overview." National Research Council. 2013. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18252.
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The Standing Committee on Defense Materials Manufacturing and Infrastructure (DMMI) conducted a workshop on July 23-24, 2012, to share information and gather perspectives on issues concerning Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems. This workshop, held at the headquarters building of the National Academies, 2101 Constitution Avenue N.W., Washington D.C., was conducted according to the procedures of the National Research Council (NRC) for a convening activity. That is, all workshop participants—including presenters, members of the DMMI standing committee, Reliance 21, invited guests, and visitors—spoke as individuals, and no overall findings, conclusions, or recommendations were developed during or as a result of the workshop. All statements and views summarized in this publication are attributable only to those individuals who expressed them. It is worth noting that the sponsor, Reliance 21, is a Department of Defense group of professionals that was established to enable the DOD science and technology (S&T) community to work together to enhance Defense S&T programs, eliminate unwarranted duplication, and strengthen cooperation among the military services and other DOD agencies.

The DMMI standing committee named a workshop planning group to develop the workshop agenda and decide on invited guests and presenters, in accordance with the statement of task approved by the Governing Board of the NRC. The planning group also consulted with the Reliance 21 materials and processing community of interest.

The presentations and discussions during the workshop are summarized sequentially in the main part of this report. As an aid to readers, nine themes have been identified by the author that recurred in multiple presentations and discussions. Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop explains these nine themes and summarizes the two day workshop.

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