Industry Interview: AAI Services Corporation
Paul Lavin
President
AAI Services Corporation
President
AAI Services Corporation
Paul Lavin is president of AAI Services Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of AAI Corporation. Based in Hunt Valley, Md., AAI Services provides contractor logistics support (CLS), depot support, training systems and simulation, and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services for government and commercial customers worldwide. Its wholly owned subsidiary, engine repair specialist McTurbine Inc., was acquired in 2006 and is based in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Lavin joined AAI Services in February 2006 from Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc., where he was director and general manager of the defense logistics group responsible for providing tailored, comprehensive logistic solutions to its customers. Before that, he was director of Air Force Programs where he led sales, marketing and after-market activities for all Honeywell Defense and Space programs with the U.S. Air Force.
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and an M.B.A. degree from Arizona State University.
Lavin will be a featured speaker at Defense Logistics 2007, on November 29 in Washington, D.C. His topic will be “PBLs and Depot Partnerships: Challenges for Implementation.”
For more information, visit www.defenselog.com.
Q: Describe AAI Services Corporation’s scope of work in the field of military logistics.
A: AAI Services Corporation is a full-service military logistics provider. We train the next generation of maintainers with our state-ofthe- art maintenance training devices and courseware development. We provide contractor logistics support on many different systems at customer locations worldwide, and we provide maintenance, repair and overhaul services at our McTurbine facility and through our partnerships with U.S. and international depots. We have over 900 employees, more than 90 percent of whom are located outside our headquarters, stationed throughout 28 states and 11 countries. Of particular pride is our ability to provide the resources, scalability and technological know-how of a large company with small-company responsiveness and flexibility. In fact, more than 60 percent of the equipment we support today is built by a company other than AAI, which speaks to our broad knowledge base. Throughout our 26-year history, we have built a strong reputation for quality support, exceeding our customer expectations time after time—even for the toughest jobs and under the most challenging conditions.
Q: Tell us about some of your current programs.
A: AAI Services Corporation is everywhere these days. We support more than 500 of the U.S. Army’s fielded biological detection systems [BDS] units worldwide—including integrated logistics support, training, forward repair activities, maintenance, obsolescence monitoring, engineering and supply management. In fact, our BDS teams are achieving an unprecedented 99.77 percent overall operational readiness rate. More than 150 of our employees are fielded in Iraq and Afghanistan and provide at- or near-front-line support for the U.S. Army’s Shadow RQ-7 Tactical unmanned aircraft system [TUAS]. We also support the Pioneer TUAS and Raven unmanned aerial vehicle. Our depot support team in Jacksonville, Fla., handles performance-based logistics for the U.S. Navy’s EA-6B hydraulics systems. This team focuses on reducing costs through management of transportation and obsolescence, upgrades, and parts maintenance and reliability. Our subsidiary, McTurbine Inc., is just miles from the Corpus Christi Army Depot in Texas. McTurbine is a Honeywell- and Goodrich-authorized helicopter engine service center with 15 years of MRO experience and a customer base of more than 300, mostly military. Finally, our South Carolina Training and Simulation Center manages programs including C-17 Globemaster III and F-22 Raptor trainers for numerous U.S. Air Force bases, as well as T-25 simulators for electronic combat training [SECT]. So it’s not an understatement to say that we cover the full gamut of military logistics needs.
Q: How vital is the role of continuous improvement in the field, and how is AAI Services responding?
A: Continuous improvement is as important to us as it is to our military customers. At AAI, we refer to these initiatives as “operational excellence,” which is our highest goal. AAI Services holds Society of Automotive Engineers AS9100 and ISO 9001:2000 Registered Quality Management System certifications. Likewise, our Lean Six Sigma, Capability Maturity Model Integration and other operational excellence programs help us increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness for our customers, who are always looking for new ways to optimize their costly technology investments over time. Further, we are focused on delivering our customers state-of-the-art technologies and industry best practices. In the field, our employees are empowered to analyze processes and suggest improvements to save customers time and money and increase accuracy. We’ve received customer commendations across numerous programs for their outstanding results and institutionalize these lessons learned as best practices in our other programs.
Q: What does the future hold for military logistics, and how will AAI Services Corporation be ready to serve these needs?
A: We believe that our military customers will contend with further intensifying budget pressures. As such, we will continue to explore the newest technologies and continuous improvement tools to increase our flexibility, cost-effectiveness and efficiency. Further, we think that the role of training and simulation will continue to grow in importance. It is an area where technological advancement can directly increase the know-how and safety of our warfighters. So it is no surprise that this is a burgeoning area of internal research and development—staying ahead of the newest capabilities and delivering them to customers. ♦ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it