Examination of the U.S. Air Force's Aircraft Sustainment Needs in the Future and Its Strategy to Meet Those Needs (2011) / Chapter Skim
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4 Assessment of Air Force Air Logistics Centers
4 Assessment of Air Force Air Logistics Centers
Pages 87-131
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currently has three Air Logistics Centers (ALCs) , operating under the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC)
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bitmap responsibility for avionics systems management, support equipment management, and electronic warfare systems and the significant maintenance of these systems. The Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (OC-ALC)
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2010. Ogden Air Logistics Center Factsheet.
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FIGURE 4-3 Weapon system management at Ogden Air Logistics Center (OO-ALC)
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In addition, the reviews of the activi ties of Headquarters AFMC and the ALCs focused on the adequacy of the ALCs' resources in terms of organizational structure, responsibilities, funding, workforce, skill sets, and technologies and their current and planned equipment to sustain legacy and future systems. In addition to the three ALCs, two Air Force major command customers of the ALCs, specifically the Air Combat Command and the Air Mobility Command, provided important input to the committee.
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From page 92... ...
Additionally, four committee members travelled to the Navy Fleet Readiness Center Southwest (FRCSW) to observe selected elements of the Navy's depot maintenance programs and the interfaces with program offices and supply support.11 Although this chapter stands alone, topics such as policy, investments in general and in facility and equipment technology are covered in depth in Chapters 2, 3, and 5, respectively.
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The material management (supply chain) and distribution func tions have largely been removed from the ALC commanders' responsibilities.
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s . A i R f o Rc e ' s A i Rc R A f t s U s tA i n m e n t n e e d s fUtURe 94 in the TABLE 4-1 Air Force Air Logistics Centers and Their Attributes Total Base ALC Location Employment ALC Employment MX Wing Employment Warner-Robins Robins AFB, 21,254 Total: 14,295; Civilians: Total: 8,786; Civilians: 8,173; Georgia 12,873; Military: 1,422 Military: 133 Ogden Hill AFB, Utah 22,547 Civilian and Military: 13,483 7,796 Oklahoma City Tinker AFB, 29,218 Total: 13,296; Civilians: Total: 9,263; Civilians: 9,152; Okla.
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, Support Equipment, Vehicles, Automated Test Systems, Commodities (C-5 flaps/pylons, C130 props/ radomes, C-17 landing gear doors, F-15 wings/speed brakes) , F-15 and C-130 FMS 17,400 ft2 $1.7 billion B-2 Structure, F-16, A-10, F-22, $3 billion C-130, T-38, Commodities, Software 9,200 ft2 FY10 total; revenue E-3, KC-135, B-1, B-52, KC-46A, $3.511 billion (including Material B-2, Contract Logistics Support Support Division)
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From page 96... ...
The ALC commanders were rendered less effective because they lost responsibility, authority, and accountability for size\able portions of the supply chain, and had no real direct influence over outside suppliers but were still accountable for depot maintenance production and a portion of parts support to field-level activities. Clearly, the ALCs have undergone a great deal of organizational change within the past 20 years.
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The Air Force should establish streamlined command lines of accountability and authority to allow the ALC commanders clear execution authorities to direct process improvements on assigned programs, maintenance activities, and supply support. HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THE RESPONSIBILITIES AND PERFORMANCE OF AIR FORCE AIR LOGISTICS CENTERS It is essential to have a clear understanding of all the resources that impact the ALCs' operations to better evaluate the ALCs' capabilities.
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Maintenance must be supported by all the factors of program management and provided with what it needs, when it needs it, by the entire supply chain. Consequently, the committee viewed sustainment activities and the resourcing of these activities at the ALCs in a holistic manner.
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ASSESSMENT OF THE RESOURCING OF AIR LOGISTICS CENTERS Policy-Driven Supply Support Policy for sustainment is largely covered in Chapter 2. As the committee as sessed the resourcing of the ALCs, it found a great deal of policy that can, in various ways and through various interpretations and regulations, encumber the efficiency of the processes.
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The ALCs have reasonable distributions of staff with skill sets to meet current needs. However, the ALC workforce appears to be constrained in product support sustainment activities in much the same way that other similar Air Force-wide organizations are suffering workforce shortages.
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In the commercial sector, flexibility exists to flow workforce with workload. The commander and the civilian executive director at the FRCSW both commented that, although their industrial workforce levels are reviewed, they have freedom to adjust industrial personnel levels as determined by the workload.19 50/50 Affects the ALC Workforce Another policy issue with broad ramifications as well as a direct impact on the workforce, which was discussed in depth in Chapter 2, is the requirement to have at least 50 percent of the depot maintenance performed in government facilities.
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These issues directly pertain to the support forces that allow the depot maintenance production ef fort to proceed efficiently and effectively and have been referred to as "color of money" issues. However, the issue actually centers around proper sizing of the support workforce -- a challenge that extends into the working level and impacts support to the production lines.
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The ALC leadership teams were strongly committed to partnering with the unions but met with varying degrees of success. There is room for significant improvement in gain ing flexible work rules to permit the workforce to be more versatile.
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The Air Force should follow in a more timely manner the statutes that require the depot maintenance industrial workforce to be managed according to workload. The Air Force should also ensure that sup porting organizations are staffed to support the industrial workloads and that flexible work rules are established to permit more workforce versatility.
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From page 105... ...
Unfortunately, this allows for excuses and often leads to celebrating superficial success rather than measurable real achievements. As discussed earlier in this chapter, the spare parts organizational structures for the Air Force at large and for the depot maintenance lines, in particular, are broken, largely because no one officer is responsible for the supply chain.
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The committee was consistently and independently told that the maintenance leadership teams must turn to four to six supply chain managers/organizations to find a responsible person who might be able to resolve the spare parts problem. 24 Kathy Cutler, Deputy Commander, Defense Logistics Agency Aviation.
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However, the target goal for FY2011 is expressed in a table for each weapon system/ subsystem and does not begin to portray the degree of parts non-availability for selected product lines at the depots, in part because depot maintenance activities can express MICAP conditions based on work content, timing, and product lines. This PBA is a good first attempt to measure the DLA performance, but additional effort should be devoted to developing metrics with upper and lower thresholds, thresholds and standards as appropriate, and a key single metric that reflects the impact on operational effectiveness and most importantly on efficiency of field and depot maintenance operations of the DLA-managed supply chain.
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MICAP, mission incapable awaiting parts; PDM, programmed depot maintenance. SOURCE: Major General Bruce A
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ASSeSSment Air Force Air LogiSticS centerS 109 oF FIGURE 4-7 continued
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and high-confidence aftermarket suppliers have a higher likelihood of providing the parts where and when needed than do mass commodity suppliers. The present market approach by the current supply chain managers seems to drive all classes of supply to the characteristics listed in the lower left quadrant of Figure 4-10.
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SOURCE: Steve Geary, Center for Executive Education, University of Ten nessee. "Acquiring What the Warfighter Needs." Presentation to the Aviation Week MRO Conference, April 12-14, 2011, Miami, Florida.
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SOURCE: Steve Geary, Center for Executive Education, University of Ten nessee. "Acquiring What the Warfighter Needs." Presentation to the Aviation Week MRO Conference, April 12-14, 2011, Miami, Florida.
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RESOURCING FOR TECHNOLOGY INSERTION AT AIR LOGISTICS CENTERS Although technology insertion is covered in depth in Chapters 5 and 6, the committee notes here that it observed a limited amount of technology inser tion into weapon system and commodity parts and into supporting maintenance equipment at the ALCs. Insertion was largely a function of what was available and provided to program management as funded by operational commands.
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ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT AT THE AIR LOGISTICS CENTERS For the ALCs to be effective, data must become the key element in their ef forts.35 Chapter 2 addresses how data suppots engineering. Maintenance of com plex equipment is as much about information as it is about the ability to execute the actual work.
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During tours at one repair facility, the committee witnessed a locally devel oped "online" report that used legacy systems to draw information and allowed the maintenance personnel to see worldwide demands for the products, to track month-to-date production against a month-to-date requirement, and track current critical product needs. The committee asked maintenance leadership, "What other production activities has this system been exported to?
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The Air Force should continue its eLog 21 approach to sustainment improvement and should aggressively continue to pursue incre mental fielding of the ECSS as an enterprise resource planning solution. Strong advocacy for this program should reside in the sustainment commander.37 MAINTENANCE PLANNING AND PRIORITIES During tours of the ALCs, the committee searched for evidence of strong planning and execution of maintenance programs.
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Attendant with an integrated approach, software maintenance became a part of the ALCs and specifically the maintenance organization in the ALCs.39 SOFTWARE SUSTAINMENT FOR LEGACY AND FUTURE SYSTEMS Although not specified in the TOR, the sustainment of software embedded in legacy and future systems was cited as a critical concern by high-level Air Force officials at the outset of the study. The primary focus of the following discussion pertains to the process for software development, through transition and on to sustainment.
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s . A i R f o Rc e ' s A i Rc R A f t s U s tA i n m e n t n e e d s fUtURe 118 in the Current Trends in Air Force Software Development and Maintenance Significant growth in software content across Air Force systems is driven by multiple factors.
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Air Force Policies for Software Sustainment Currently, no reasonable, concrete definition of software maintenance exists. There is no set Air Force policy for when software development, upgrade, or modi fication or when software maintenance begins or ends.
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Deschamps, Air Force Materiel Command. Personal communication to the committee, May 11, 2011.
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The cur rent organizational components are stable, but there is concern over the stability 45 Karl Rogers, Director, 309th Software Maintenance Group, OO-ALC. "309th Software Mainte nance Group." Presentation to the committee, February 1, 2011.
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49 Karl Rogers, Director, 309th Software Maintenance Group, OO-ALC. "309th Software Mainte nance Group." Presentation to the committee, February 1, 2011.
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Future Challenges Based on New Aircraft Entering the Inventory The primary issues with the future software enterprise are driven by two long-standing heuristics: "Software is never finished" and "Software never makes the system cost less." These truisms do not implicate problems with software as a technology, but instead reflect the fact that software can significantly enhance capa 53 Tom Labrie, 76th Software Maintenance Group (76 SMXG)
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The Air Force should focus on strengthening and re taining the advanced skill sets needed for the sustainment of new aircraft systems. The facilities and laboratories related to software sustainment are adequate to meet current demands.
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As such, management attention should focus on acquisition/sustainment planning early in the genesis of weapon 54 Karl Rogers, Director, 309th Software Maintenance Group, OO-ALC. "309th Software Mainte nance Group." Presentation to the committee, February 1, 2011.
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Recommendation 4-8. The Air Force should pursue a blended partnership between ALCs and contractors throughout the entire software development and sustainment life cycle, commencing before Milestone A
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The impact of not having a system appears to be far greater at the ALCs/AFGLSC because of their total responsibility for fleet support across commands and in some cases across services and foreign military sales. EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF AIR FORCE AIR LOGISTICS CENTERS During the course of the committee's visits, several "white boards," flat screen displays, or paper charts were used to reflect the productivity efforts of the people.
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Many argued that the depot maintenance piece, the field maintenance piece, and the supply piece all build the AA metric. There was enough evidence to suggest that the many pieces of the metric result in no one fully taking account ability and responsibility for the performance.
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Nevertheless, the organizational structure of the ALCs is not resourced adequately in that executive leadership does not have full command or control of the ALC enterprise. To a serious extent, the supply chain causes great inefficiencies in the depot maintenance and parts repair efforts.
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SOURCE: Gregory Mann, United States Navy, Fleet Readi ness Center Southwest, Industrial Business Operations Department. Personal communication to the committee on May 16, 2011.
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ASSeSSment Air Force Air LogiSticS centerS 131 oF AV-8B PMD FY2011 Performance Data FIGURE 4-14 continued
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