Handbook helps weapon systems get to warfighter quicker

  • Published
  • By Capt. Paul Baldwin
  • Air Force Materiel Command Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) --  The Department of Defense is constantly looking for ways to reduce the time it takes to get new weapon systems in the hands of the warfighter.

The acquisition community at Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command here is helping the DOD do just that.

The acquisition logistics division recently rolled out a new handbook for program managers called the Independent Logistics Assessment, or ILA. The handbook is an optional tool to help program managers meet their responsibility to assess or evaluate a program’s product support planning efforts. It provides guidance on how to organize, plan, conduct, document and report an independent logistics assessment.

ILAs target the early acquisition phases where program managers have the best opportunity to ensure all necessary support is in place at the lowest possible life cycle logistics cost, said James Case, Logistics and Sustainment Directorate and project manager for the ILA handbook.

“It offers a standardized systematic approach to assessing logistics support, and it must be performed by a team of experts from outside the office being assessed,” Mr. Case said.

The handbook is built around sustainment elements and has checklists that help guide assessors. The checklists can be tailored to a specific acquisition phase and program.

“ILAs verify that all the major tasks have been accomplished or planned for, given where they are in the weapon’s life cycle,” Mr. Case said.

The handbook arrives at a time in the command when leadership is focusing heavily on continuous process improvement through the Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century initiative.

“I see in AFSO 21 a major opportunity for us to operate as one -- in unity with the same mindset, behavior and thought process toward the common goal of continuous improvement across our command,” Gen. Bruce Carlson, AFMC commander, said in a recent Commander’s Log.

Creation of the handbook resulted from an internal review by the acquisition community. Among the goals were to improve support to customers and to track whether or not programs were meeting Air Force instruction responsibilities.

“The product centers often expressed their need for more tools to help in this (assessment) area,” Mr. Case said. “We drew upon the experience of both Army and Navy logistics assessment programs to reintroduce a standard way of assessing product support.”

The new ILA handbook has already been tested. The Navy completed an ILA on 85 percent of the MV-22, the Marine version of the Air Force CV-22, and the Air Force asked the acquisition community to look at the 15 percent of the CV-22 program that was not assessed during the Navy ILA.

A 23-member team worked on the CV-22 independent assessment at the CV-22 Systems Squadron, Patuxent River, Md., from September 2005 to January 2006.

The assessment team had positive things to say about the experience.

“The ILA handbook provides a nice tool for program offices to do self-assessment on their programs, which is something that has been lacking,” said Thomas Knapke, a logistics management specialist from the Aeronautical Systems Center, Acquisition Excellence Directorate, and one of the CV-22 lead assessors.

“ILAs will enable programs to identify logistics design issues before development is complete, thereby saving potentially millions of dollars,” he said.

Two new cross-command teams have been formed to build two new additional appendixes for the pre-milestone B and sustainment phases of acquisition, thus enhancing the ILA handbook.