NCMS Vice President- Chuck Ryan, Greg Kilchenstein- Senior Policy Analyst Office of the Secretary of Defense, George Ray- Garrison Manager Sierra Army Depot, Ken Ehrman- President, I.D. Systems, Inc.
Sierra Army Depot (SIAD) hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony today to mark the successful demonstration of an innovative wireless industrial Vehicle Management System (VMS). Centralized Fleet Automated Management System (CFAMS)- is an NCMS Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) program, with the goals of reducing industrial vehicle maintenance costs, improving fleet mission readiness, increasing material handling productivity and the consequential velocity of critical warfighter supplies, and improving worker safety.
The ribbon-cutting also served as a formal introduction of CFAMS to other U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) agencies, and was attended by representatives of DoD facilities from across the United States.
SIAD’s demonstration of CFAMS capabilities focused on proving three primary areas of benefit:
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improving vehicle preventative maintenance management and reducing fleet maintenance costs;
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identifying opportunities to reduce fleet size and associated capital and operating costs; and
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reducing the costs associated with facility and equipment damage caused by vehicles.
Based on months of accumulated data, the CFAMS deployment at SIAD demonstrated that the following benefits were achievable:·
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By automatically uploading true vehicle usage data for more accurate maintenance scheduling, and by automatically alerting maintenance personnel to problematic conditions on vehicles, CFAMS showed that fleet maintenance costs could be reduced by at least 22%.
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By isolating vehicle utilization patterns by equipment type and role, CFAMS demonstrated that a fleet reduction of at least 15%-20% was immediately achievable, with a commensurate reduction in purchase outlays, fuel costs, and maintenance costs. In addition, this fleet “right-sizing” could enable a substantial reallocation of labor to increase overall depot productivity.·
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By monitoring and recording detailed data on vehicle “impact events,” by preventing unauthorized personnel from using vehicles, and by establishing better driver accountability, CFAMS showed that the costs resulting from damage caused by vehicles could be reduced by up to 25%.
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Overall, CFAMS demonstrated that it could pay for itself and start generating positive cash flow for the depot within 12 to 16 months of deployment.
The initial CFAMS implementation at SIAD was funded through the NCMS CTMA program, a partnerships between the DoD and private industry to facilitate development, deployment and validation of innovative commercial technologies that can provide operational benefits and cost savings for DoD maintenance activities.
SIAD is an installation of the U. S. Army’s Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) under the U. S. Army Materiel Command. The depot’s mission is to provide worldwide logistics support for the U.S. Army, including receipt, storage, repair, shipping, maintenance, and fabrication of assets. The depot is a Center of Industrial Technical Excellence focused on “lean manufacturing” process improvements.
For more information please contact:
NCMS Program Manager, Debra Lilu, (734) 995-7038, debral@ncms.org
