"Give 'Em the Hook!" - Ridding DoD of Bad Actor Parts
Written by Mark B. Roddy, Colornel USAF (Retired)
In the days of vaudeville, when performers on the stage were not meeting the expectation of the audience, a hook would appear from the wings and drag them off the stage before they could do any more harm to the show. Thus, when the audience wanted to signal their discontent, one way was for them to yell out, “Give ‘em the hook!”
While vaudeville may be long gone, the concept and impact of improperly or non-functioning entities, in this case reparable items called “bad actors” used by the U.S. military forces, continue to negatively impact overall performance and readiness. In the case of today’s military, that poor (or even “non”) performance can put the lives and combat readiness of our warfighters at risk.
Today, advancements in radio frequency identification (RFID) and unique identification (UID) technology make the tracking of individual bad actors not only possible, but advisable. This article demonstrates how DoD could benefit from the application of RFID and UID technology to achieve the long-sought goal of giving bad actor parts “the hook.”
Setting the Stage (so to speak)
Until recently, it was too cumbersome and too expensive to try and micromanage what we in U.S. Air Force aircraft maintenance used to call “bad actors.” These are reparable parts, also known as line replacement units (LRU), which fail in the field, yet check out within tolerance on automated or other test equipment. Having passed the bench check, they are returned to the supply system as serviceable parts. While these parts are technically serviceable, they are installed and operate in a much harsher environment than the automated test facility.
They might also be matched with similarly marginally-within-tolerance LRUs. In either case, the parts tend to fail prematurely, and then go through the same bench check tests, pass the checks, and get returned to serviceable status. It’s a vicious—and dangerous—cycle.
While technicians at a base might eventually recognize a part that kept coming back to the intermediate repair facility, there was no way to really identify and isolate the bad actors as they cycled through the repair centers. These items typically have had serial numbers to aid in their tracking and management, but there was nothing to guarantee that the serial number was absolutely unique to that one item. For example, similar items sourced from several different vendors would all have the same national stock number, but it was conceivable that they might also have the same serial number.
Thus, it was (and still is) difficult, if not impossible to track these parts as they move through a service’s supply system. In the case of parts common to more than one service, they may move through several different supply systems. If you can’t track down and isolate the real bad actor, a truly serviceable part could wind up being disposed of by mistake. Given the high cost of many of these LRUs, caution and prudence have to hold sway. With the introduction of RFID and UID technology to DoD, however, it is now possible to monitor an individual item throughout its life cycle.
Active and passive RFID tags and readers can track an item as it moves through the logistics chain. Based on the tracking data accumulated across the logistics chain, managers can analyze a part’s performance by, for example, setting an automated alert trigger. When an item returns to a depot or intermediate repair facility outside the normal range of time, usage hours or some other metric established by the item manager for that type of part, they are alerted to this occurrence. While that tells them that an item has returned for repair/bench check outside of normal parameters, the real payoff is when they link these occurrences to a specific item. That is where the item unique identifier (IUID) steps in to its key role.
No longer can a bad actor “hide” under the disguise of a potentially duplicate serial number. Like fingerprints or DNA, the IUID which has been mandated by DoD for all items with an acquisition value of $5,000, and/or serial number controlled items, tags that item with a totally singular identity. That identity can now be used to identify and isolate a bad actor and justify its removal from the logistics chain. By linking all the costs inherent in the logistics chain: troubleshooting, transporting, repairing—even if it is simply a bench check—packing, storing and transporting the item as it moves from the field to an intermediate repair facility or depot, managers can now justify the acquisition of a replacement item versus the continued consumption of resources by a bad actor.
As a notional example, the estimated organic depot repair workload for communications electronics and support equipment commodity groups in FY 2007 is over 5.8 million hours. Assuming that one half of one percent of the above hours is consumed by bad actors, that means over 29,000 hours would be spent on these items. At a “loaded” hourly labor rate of $145, and with four hours spent on each item for a bench check only, the depot labor costs alone consumed by bad actors is over $4.2 million.
However, when you calculate in the cost of field troubleshooting, packing, storing and transporting these items from and back to the field, an additional $29 million is consumed (based on a total logistics cost of $3,000/item). When costs of this magnitude can be linked to specific non-performers, the financial justification to dispose of those bad actors and purchase replacements is obvious.
Given the current wartime demands on DoD personnel and equipment, and the logistics challenges which lie ahead in terms of equipment reset and the continuing needs of deployed warfighters, we can ill afford to be expending any extra time on bad actor parts. The technology—and the know-how to exploit that technology—to reduce or eliminate the logistics waste caused by bad actors exists today and is ready to be put to use. It’s time to give these bad actors the hook, so the real stars, the men and women of DoD, can better carry out their missions on the world stage. ♦
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Colonel Mark Roddy (USAF-Ret.) is the DoD industry principal for SAP Public Services, Inc. Roddy was a career Air Force logistician with tours of duty in the aircraft maintenance, ground communications-electronics maintenance and logistics plans career fields.
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