Partnering for Better Support

Written by Henry Canaday

MLF 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 (February)

For example, Hill ALC (Hill Air Force Base, Ogden, Utah) has about 20 active partnerships with the private sector, according to Bret Swanson, division chief for plans, business and transformation. Hill is generally happy with these relationships. Swanson predicts the approach will become much more prevalent in the future.

Major collaborations include a partnership with Lockheed and Boeing on lifetime sustainment for the F-22. Lockheed has a performance based logistics (PBL) contract with the F-22 program office, and uses Hill to help satisfy its requirements. The firm supplies parts and engineering support at Hill, and the Air Force does touch labor. “This is a long-term partnership, not just a five-year contract,” Swanson stressed. “We collaborate on depot support for the F-22, everything from airframes to secondary power and landing gear.” Hill also works under a PBL contract with Honeywell on secondary power systems, with the contractor providing parts and engineering support and Hill doing touch labor.

Hill partners with Northrop Grumman, with Hill fabricating composite parts for the B-2, an essential part of maintaining the B-2. Hill also manufactures parts for the production line of General Atomics’ RQ-1 Predator.

A similar public-private partnership (PPP) making parts for ATK on the F-22 is no longer active. And ATK has leased Hill autoclaves to make composite structures when this did not interfere with Hill needs, bringing in revenue and thus helping reduce the cost of Hill’s Air Force work. Finally, Hill leases out 550 acres for commercial development, the profits used to finance replacement of the base’s aging infrastructure.

PBL requires contractors to meet metrics, including availability and maintainability. Under PPPs, many metrics flow down to Hill for its part of the work. “Some requirements do not flow down, for example FAR [Federal Acquisition Regulations] requirements, but delivery schedules and the like do flow down.” Swanson explained.

PPPs begin with a partnership agreement, laying out generally how the agreement will work, dispute-resolution processes and points of contact. The subsequent implementation agreement sets out repairs to be done, pricing, technical specifications and other details. The partners meet quarterly or annually to stay aligned.

A partnership agreement has been reached by Hill, the other two ALCs, the Navy and Lockheed for support of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The implementation agreement must still be worked out. Swanson expects similar partnerships on the C-27 and the KC-X tanker. “I think we will see partnerships on a lot of platforms and could see them on some commodities.”

Warner Robins ALC has a long history of cooperating with both private firms and other public agencies, noted Kim Lynn, director of its plan and programs office. In addition to PBL and PPPs, cooperation is done under cooperative research and development agreements. All these agreements are now led by the ALC’s business office.

Current Warner Robins partnerships cover aircraft such as the C-17, the C-130J and the F-15. “They also address components such as electronic warfare systems, targeting and navigation systems, redesign of obsolete Line Replaceable Units, software and manufacturing,” Lynn noted. PBL helps support the C-17, C-130J and the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System.

PPPs help reduce technology gaps and cycle times, enhance technical support, access permits and avoid duplicative investments, among other advantages “They are a win-win for all parties,” Lynn said. PBL can improve readiness by focusing on metrics like availability, rather than on parts, training, maintenance and technical services. Common PBL metrics include incentives for reducing costs, administrative lead times and production lead times, and increasing component availability and reliability. PBL metrics may also include supply-chain measurements such as customer wait time, mission capability (MICAP) hours and stockage effectiveness, engineering measurements such as response times to priority tasks, and customer satisfaction.

Work allocation depends on specific agreements, but most PPPs hold the contractor responsible for managing parts and material for the ALC, with the ALC doing touch labor. PBL and PPP performance is tracked by a variety of information systems, including the Joint Deficiency Reporting System, Aircraft Maintenance Production/Compression Reporting System, Defense Maintenance Accounting and Production System, and the Defense Industrial Financial Management System. Cooperation through PBLs and PPPs has yielded gains in improved component availability and reductions in acquisition lead time and production lead time. It has also reduced turntimes and enhanced technical capabilities for Warner Robins. “Under one PBL [contract] we realized a 50 percent decrease in acquisition lead time and a 28 percent decrease in production lead time,” Lynn said. “Impacts to warfighters are significant with 25 percent reductions in MICAPs.”

Warner Robins is now considering PBL on the C-5 Avionics Modernization Program. Further PPP opportunities include support of the F-22, RQ-4 Global Hawk, C-27J, C-130J and F-35.

PARTNERSHIPS WORK ON SOFTWARE TOO

Tinker has 18 partnerships with private contractors, including Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Northrop Grumman, Pratt & Whitney, GE, General Atomics, Honeywell and Lockheed Martin. These support the E-3 Sentry, B-1 Battle System and a wide variety of engines and accessories on other aircraft.

The partnership approach is applicable not only to equipment and touch labor. Tinker’s cooperation with private firms includes PBL for sharing software work on the B-2 with Northrop Grumman. Under this software sustainment contract, the company does approximately 75 percent of the work, depot engineers the other quarter.

Specific responsibilities are negotiated each year as specified in the performance work statement and implementation agreement. The metrics are shaped by the distinctive demands of software analysis and development and include such items as the number of impact evaluation (IE) reports delivered by Northrop Grumman to the government, the number of IEs implemented and delivered for testing, and the delivery of software system trouble reports.

Meetings are held to score and review each month’s performance, with results tracked manually by the B-2 system support manager and reported to the B-2 program office. Tinker reports that software content and quality have improved, as has the satisfaction of government customers. Availability of important software systems has also improved and production turntimes have been reduced. Reflecting this success, Northrop has consistently been awarded between 80 and 100 percent of available award fees.

Partnerships serve both specific goals and overall Air Force strategy. “Our mission is to provide the most effective support to warfighters at the three depots, while staying within Title 10’s core and 50-50 rules,” summarized Don Lucht, deputy chief of depot operations at Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC). Overall objectives of cooperation include maintaining the viability of the Air Force’s depots and the viability of the commercial sector. “Slightly under half of maintenance is now done by commercial firms, and the depots have roughly the same percent, out of $11 billion a year,” Lucht noted.

Some contractors are located at depots, while the Air Force does touch labor. Lucht said his office is looking at transitioning some intellectual property to organic maintenance. “Ultimately, we want to get aircraft back faster and cheaper,” added Greg Dierker, of the AFMC’s Business Integration office. “We use PPPs to bring technology in-house.”

The number of partnerships has been increasing. AFMC receives a total of 10 new proposed PPPs each year from all three ALCs and is now reviewing about 40 of these proposals, not all of which will be executed. “Sometimes we need support for functions we do not have, and other times it is to bring work back into organic,” Dierker said. “We will take a look at all the reasonable partnerships.” He emphasized that PPPs generally bring work back into organic Air Force facilities.

Lucht sees the PPPs now in place as generally effective. Of 850 annual maintenance events contracted out, 93 percent came out on time, Lucht said. Contractors have been “good stewards” of the military facilities and staff they use to complete this work, he argued.

PPPs come in different types. In some cases the Air Force contracts directly with a private firm, which in turn subcontracts with the ALC. In other cases, a work-share agreement assigns some work to the contractor and some to the ALC. “If it is a big fleet, it does not make sense for the Air Force to do it all,” Lucht said. “And industry has its own bases. In some cases work is outsourced as part of the initial support strategy. In the future it is likely we are going to partner for the F-35. We can do that up front as a true partnership, instead of a five- to ten-year contract. The number one thing is to work together to get the best solution.”

Lucht said the Air Force has learned many lessons in working under PPPs, many involving accountability. “I can determine what goes on in organic, but I do not have the same visibility into contract maintenance.”

Another lesson is maintaining flexibility in partnerships, as long as both sides are meeting performance requirements. “And the biggest issue in PPPs is how they are integrated, we have typically gone outside.”

Dierker noted that there have been improvements over time in PPPs. A 2009 memorandum thus laid out some general roles and responsibilities in making PPPs work. It also established a standard template for the partnership and implementation agreements. Often ALCs might use different forms for these crucial agreements. “Companies said it was like going to three different organizations, so we have templates that will make it faster, bring in more metrics for accountability and require quarterly updates,” Dierker added.

Lucht said the Air Force has worked with its sister services on partnership policies, “but not as much as we ought to.” He points to the new partnership agreement on the F-35 as a successful example of how different services can work together productively, saying “that is why it was done faster.”

Honeywell cooperates with the Air Force at all three ALCs, explained Steve Pitts, vice president of Air Force and Defense Logistics Agency business. It has a 10-year PBL agreement for C-130 auxiliary power units and ground power carts at Hill. “It has been very successful, held out as a model by the Air Force,” Pitts said. The APUs are repaired at the depot, while Honeywell does training and manages parts and logistics, in return for flight-hour payments. “We bring new methods over from the commercial side and supervise Air Force personnel. Turnaround times have dropped and availability has gone up significantly.” Under this, C-130s must meet minimum availability metrics for Honeywell to get its full flight-hours payments. And the company profits when its power units stay on-wing longer.

Honeywell partners with Warner Robins for repairs of displays and air-data computers on the F-15. It is paid based on repairs done, not under PBL terms, but the actual work is similar to that under PBL. The company is seeking a similar partnership at Tinker to support flight controls and air-data computers on the B-1.

Pitts said PBL is better suited to mechanical parts whose wear is a function of flight hours or cycles, while partnerships are more suitable for avionic components.

Air Force and Honeywell information systems are aligned in both PBL and PPPs, and regular consultations are held to keep the work aligned. “For example, at Hill we have a stakeholders talk every two months, reviewing issues that come up, including changes in information systems.”

Honeywell assigns three to 10 people to each ALC, including field engineers to resolve more complex problems, and headquarters experts are always on call to help out as well.

Honeywell would like to expand the PBL and PPP approaches and has content on almost every military aircraft. But volume is key, in two senses. First, does the military depot have sufficient volume to justify repairs on site, versus sending parts back to Honeywell shops for repair? And second, does Honeywell have enough volume of similar commercial systems to provide lessons valuable to its military customers? For example, Pitts said the F-22 and B-52 generate small volumes of work for Honeywell, so the partnership approach probably does not make sense. But overall, he believes the Air Force finds the approach very productive and he expects it will expand.

The APN-241 is the radar installed in the C-130s and Northrop Grumman is in partnership with WR-ALC to support total system sustainment. The government will do the touch labor repairs and NG will build and support the test equipment, provide supply chain management and inventory control of all assets to include the piece parts for repair. Metrics include system availability, repair turnaround time, parts fill rates, and stockage effectiveness.

“Such partnerships as PPPs, PBLs and CLSs agreements continue to be successful in the marketplace because of the dedication of both the Northrop Grumman team and the U.S. Air Force,” said Joe Stein, Northrop Grumman Technical Services deputy director for CLS programs. “By working shoulder to shoulder with the Air Force, we’ve been able to breed a culture of performance coupled with world-class services and timely support that ensure quick turn-around times that not only benefit big Air Force, but most importantly, our warfighters supporting operations around the globe. Northrop Grumman also has similar partnerships with the Air Force on such programs as JSTARS and KC-10.”

L-3 has two partnerships with Warner Robins, a PPP on the MC-130W Combat Spear and a strategic partnership agreement on the C-27J.

The PPP is converting C-130Hs to MC-130W configuration, with more than 33 modifications to each aircraft. L-3 and its subcontractors do engineering, acquisition, scheduling, planning, kitting and logistics, while the ALC furnishes electricians, sheetmetal mechanics, back-shops, paint facilities and hangars. PPP metrics include cost, schedule and performance measurements.

Under this PPP, 11 of 12 MC-130Ws have been delivered on or ahead of schedule and at or below costs. The eighth MC-130W was delivered with zero defects, unique in C-130 work. And the ALC has used this PPP to inform other programs, including the transition to high-velocity maintenance on C-130s.

The C-27J program is transitioning from the U.S. Army to the Air Force, and Warner Robins has been given sustainment responsibility. The strategic partnership provides for L-3 and the ALC to work together on long-term sustainment. Specific responsibilities and metrics must still be worked out. ♦

Back to Top