The Future of Maintenance
Written by Colonel Charles Gibson
MLF 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 9 (October)
Future Facility Is A Look Into A Crystal Ball.
This scenario, set in the not-too-distant future, represents one of many capabilities demonstrated in Tobyhanna Army Depot’s Depot Maintenance of the Future (DMOF) facility. Dedicated this summer, DMOF uses cutting edge technology to test new concepts and study new maintenance technologies and processes.
The 10,000-square-foot facility is a working laboratory to evaluate new tools, equipment and facilities. It features a flexible and agile workplace that can rapidly be reconfigured to accommodate new workload demands and respond to the needs of customers. Concepts and methods proved in DMOF will migrate to other Tobyhanna maintenance organizations and will be shared across the DoD maintenance community.
Along with its flexibility, the DMOF facility offers a paperless work environment and the latest electrostatic discharge (ESD) control features. All technical data needed by technicians is available at each workstation. Some workstations feature dual monitors so that technicians can access test procedures and schematics concurrently. The latest technology is employed to negate ESD damage to sensitive electronics, including ESD dissipative flooring, ESD smocks and footgear for technicians and visitors.
A key part of the DMOF facility is its advanced computer design facility where depot engineers can work with clients in designing and upgrading systems and components. The advanced visualization system interfaces with Tobyhanna’s computer aided engineering system to provide a three-dimensional, virtual means to deliver design and manufacturing solutions in real-time, reducing the need to build prototypes and speeding product development. It builds on Tobyhanna’s engineering capabilities in system design and downsizing, while providing the capability to share engineering assets and information throughout the DoD maintenance community.
The facility also offers an improved quality of work life with a controlled climate, natural lighting from through-roof solar tubes, adjustable work benches and other ergonomic features to increase productivity. Its modular design allows rapid adjustment to workload changes; solar panels generate energy for ambient and task lighting, and a water reclamation system collects and sanitizes rainwater for use in nearby restrooms.
DMOF is the latest evolution in Tobyhanna’s mission development since it was established in 1953 as Tobyhanna Signal Depot. At the time, it had a limited geographic mission to support the Army in the northeastern United States. As Tobyhanna grew into a worldwide enterprise for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems (C4ISR) sustainment support, it added a communications-electronics maintenance facility in the early 1980s, dedicated satellite communications and secure communications buildings in the 1990s, and a variety of specialized radar test ranges to accommodate a growing mission for that commodity.
Today, Tobyhanna Army Depot, located in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, supports all branches of the armed forces as the joint maintenance center for C4ISR. A key element of the CECOM Life Cycle Management Command (LCMC), Tobyhanna plays a major role in the command’s ability to provide support and sustainment through the Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) model. This model has moved the Army from a linear sequential deployment model to a cyclic approach to ensure a sustained supply of trained and ready forces. Tobyhanna’s efforts include the reset, train/ready and available stages of the cycle.
Further recognition of Tobyhanna’s critical role in logistics sustainment is the secretary of the Army designation of Tobyhanna as the Army’s center of industrial and technical excellence for C4ISR and electronics, avionics, and missile guidance and control. Similarly, the secretary of the Air Force has designated Tobyhanna as the Air Force’s Technology Repair Center for command, control, communications and intelligence.
Tobyhanna’s breadth and depth of C4ISR sustainment capability is unmatched in the public or private sector. The systems supported by Tobyhanna span the electromagnetic spectrum from handheld radios to strategic satellite terminals, from man-portable radar systems to large air defense radars and artillery locating systems, from electro-optics and night vision devices to anti-intrusion and airborne surveillance equipment, from navigational instruments and electronic warfare systems to guidance and control systems for air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles.
Activities on a recent day illustrate the range and scope of Tobyhanna’s missions: At Tobyhanna, technicians worked with a team of airmen to familiarize them on the upgraded facilities and capabilities of an AN/TPN-19 landing control central (radar set); Tobyhanna personnel in Afghanistan worked in blistering heat, installing counter radio-controlled improvised explosive device (IED) electronic warfare systems into HMMWVs to defeat the threat posed by those weapons.
Back at Tobyhanna, machinists and other industrial workers were manufacturing stronger and more reliable helmet brackets for soldiers’ night vision devices. More of their co-workers were hard at work at Fort Knox and Fort Bragg resetting night vision devices for units recently returned from deployment.
As these few examples from just one day show, Tobyhanna is a global enterprise, providing comprehensive maintenance and logistics support on C4ISR systems to all branches of the armed forces. Tobyhanna personnel work at more than 80 forward locations, including 30 in Southwest Asia (SWA). Tobyhanna personnel are embedded with units and provide direct support on such critical systems as Firefinder radars, secure and satellite communications, electronic warfare and counter-IED systems.
Each day about 550 technicians, fully 10 percent of the work force, are working outside the gates of Tobyhanna. On average, about 150 Tobyhanna employees are deployed to SWA, primarily in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, doing logistics and maintenance support missions every day. In addition to these and FRAs at almost every post, camp or station across the Army, Tobyhanna has many system-specific technicians embedded in many of our Army formations, including Stryker brigades and Guardrail units, and supporting systems like tactical operations centers, Army airborne command and control systems, tactical unmanned aerial vehicles, common ground stations, and air defense and air management cells. Between 35 and 40 technicians are in-theater installing IED defeat equipment on vehicles used for combat and logistics operations.
Technical assistance in the field has expanded rapidly this decade, and growth will continue with the evolution of a new organizational structure to manage and coordinate field sustainment and support. Working with its sister organization within the CECOM LCMC, Tobyhanna and Logistics and Readiness Center personnel are formulating an integrated approach to deliver worldwide, expeditionary field logistics support and services on C4ISR systems for the joint warfighter. This will be accomplished through a global network of permanent and deployed personnel located at forward locations. They will possess a reach-back and reach-across capability within Army Materiel Command to fully leverage technical and industrial capabilities for warfighters.
RESETTING THE FORCE
A substantial portion of Tobyhanna’s workload is resetting equipment for units training in preparation for deployment. Since 2003, Tobyhanna has reset more than 130,000 items in more than 1,000 programs. Principal systems reset at or by Tobyhanna in the field include secure communications equipment, tactical operations centers, communications systems (FM, microwave and satellite), Firefinder weapons-locating radars, battlefield computer systems, and over 25,000 smaller items of communications and electronics equipment.
Tobyhanna’s communications electronics evaluation repair teams are rapidly deployable groups of technicians who help speed the reset of equipment such as night vision devices and Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS) radios used in the combat zone. These critical systems are in high demand by the warfighter and are immediately needed after redeployment to begin training for future missions and operations. By exporting capabilities to installations where Army units are preparing for redeployment, Tobyhanna delivers faster turnaround of these critical systems.
Tobyhanna’s new equipment training (NET) team supports training requirements for a number of C4ISR systems around the world. Primary customers include Product Manager Command Post Systems and Integration, Battlefield Intrusion Systems and Foreign Military Sales Manager International Military Education and Training. Its NET instructors train on new equipment, reset fieldings, refreshers, retrofits, upgrades and sustainment for soldiers and field service representatives. NET instructors also develop new training curriculum to bridge the delta created through technology insertion during the reset process. Similarly, Tobyhanna has on-site and distributed training programs for its technicians who are embedded with the units to ensure continuity of support and operations.
RAPID RESPONSE
With extensive engineering design and manufacturing capabilities, Tobyhanna can react rapidly to changing battlefield requirements. As an example, Tobyhanna quickly designed and now manufactures helmet brackets for night vision devices. With over 400,000 produced to date, the Tobyhanna brackets are more economical and durable than the original brackets they replace.
Tobyhanna also is manufacturing a variety of installation kits to meet current field requirements, including kits for the secure battlefield wide-area network commonly referred to as the Blue Force Tracking system. More recently, these efforts have expanded to produce several types of installation kits for the critical mine resistant ambush protected vehicles. Tobyhanna recently surpassed the 100,000 marks in kits produced.
Working with the Product Manager IED Defeat/Force Protect, Tobyhanna designed and manufactured a prototype roller interface bracket to mount IED roller kits on a variety of wheeled vehicles. As a result of that effort, Tobyhanna is now manufacturing a variant for use specifically on Stryker vehicles.
CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVING
Tobyhanna uses all of the latest technology, logistics theory and doctrine, and supply chain advancements to optimize performance today and set conditions for its responsiveness and growth over the next decade.
Tobyhanna is the Army’s first depot to implement the Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) component of the Single Army Logistics Enterprise. LMP delivers real-time, single-view total asset visibility, promotes collaborative planning and forecasting, supports the prediction of future capacity and associated supply needs, and, as a result, delivers a smaller supply chain footprint on the battlefield.
Introduction of the Industrial Product Support Vendor program is reducing storage and materiel-handling costs and speeding parts to technicians, enabling the depot to produce items and return them to field users more rapidly.
Radio frequency identification technology tracks the movement of components through the maintenance process, improving efficiency and accountability in the complex effort to repair sophisticated C4ISR systems with thousands of parts.
Public-private partnerships use the respective strengths of private-sector firms and organic depots by lowering costs, accelerating innovation and sustaining critical skills and capabilities. Tobyhanna has scores of partnerships with leading defense firms. In a unique arrangement, Tobyhanna is partnered with several personal computer manufacturers to deliver warranty support for their products to Army users in SWA.
In addition to DMOF, Tobyhanna continues to add facilities and capabilities to enhance its total sustainment mission. These include the lightweight counter mortar radar live fire simulator and an elevated burn facility to support Firefinder weapons-locating radars. The depot will soon break ground for a C4ISR finishing center, which will expedite several steps in the repair process, including painting and sand blasting of large vans and shelters. Tobyhanna also is installing new test ranges to accommodate Marine Corps and Navy radar workload moving to Tobyhanna as a result of BRAC 2005. Finally, the tools of Lean and Six Sigma remain a foundation for continuous improvement to ensure Tobyhanna’s future competitiveness. Tobyhanna is accomplishing its unprecedented workload growth through the effective application of Lean business practices, which free up capacity to complete increased workload and take on new missions.
Since fiscal year 2007, Tobyhanna has saved about $60 million by applying Lean tools, reducing costs for customers and producing more systems for the warfighter. The efficiencies created earned the depot prestigious Shingo Medallions for excellence in manufacturing in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Confirming Tobyhanna’s position as a joint depot, Tobyhanna earned its first Shingo Medallion in 2006 for its process improvements on the AN/TPS-75 air defense radar, an Air Force system. In 2007 the Shingo Board recognized the depot for eliminating waste and creating efficiencies for its overhaul of the Firefinder radar antenna transceiver group. Most recently in 2008, Tobyhanna earned Shingo awards for value stream improvements on the AN/TYQ-23 tactical air operations module supporting both Air Force and Marine Corps operations, and the AN/ASM-189 electronic maintenance van supporting Army maintenance units.
Tobyhanna also has earned two Army Superior Unit Awards in the last four years for its cost efficiencies, quality, productivity and responsiveness to the needs of the warfighter.
STANDING READY
Tobyhanna Army Depot is an innovative, forward-looking organization, adaptable and responsive to customer’s changing requirements. We are determined to deliver quality and timely support to our warfighters. With a clear vision and a strategic plan for the future, expanded global reach, new missions, exploration and application of state-of-the-art technology, Tobyhanna stands ready to provide C4ISR support to the warfighter in today’s wartime environment and in a challenging future. ♦
Colonel Charles C. Gibson is the commander of Tobyhanna Army Depot.