The 2017 DoD Maintenance Symposium was something to Bee-Hold
The 2017 DoD Maintenance Symposium, held December 4-7 at the Calvin L. Rampton Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, was a hive of activity and NCMS – and their CTMA program – was right in the middle. Over 1600 participants from government to industry and academia were in attendance to demonstrate and discover the latest innovative maintenance and sustainment technologies.
From large multi-national companies such as Lockheed Martin and Siemens, to sole proprietor companies with novel technologies, each had several opportunities to demonstrate and impress high-level decision makers within the DoD. There were also military and national laboratory exhibit spaces that demonstrated government, industry, and academia collaborations, all to improve the safety and readiness of the warfighter.
NCMS secured a large booth centrally-located to ensure the highest amount of traffic in the exhibition hall. Because Utah is known as the “Beehive State”, the booth theme this year was Cross Pollinating Sustainment Technology. Surrounding a custom-made beehive and colorful set-ups, six NCMS member industries that sponsored the booth wore colorful jerseys that not only made them stand out, but identified them as NCMS members. When the exhibition hall was open they were constantly demonstrating their technologies to impressed attendees.
Partner industries that sponsored the NCMS booth and their technologies were:
- Analatom, Inc.: Corrosion Health Management Detector Sensors
- Automated Precision, Inc. (API): Non-Destructive Inspection rapid and agile 3D scanner
- Benchmark Electronics, Inc. High-value Asset Tracking
- Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence: Coordinate Measuring Machines and Portable Measuring Machines
- Spectro Scientific: Expeditionary Fluid Analysis
- Universal Synaptics: Intermittent Fault Detection System & Isolation System and the Voyager Intermittent Fault Detector
Because of the relationship that NCMS has developed with the DoD and the OSD’s Maintenance Policy & Programs office, several Joint Technology Exchange Group (JTEG) principals and key representatives (often high level maintenance decision makers) made visiting the NCMS booth and learning more about their sponsor industries, a priority.
The DoD Maintenance Symposium, administrated by SAE International is the only DoD approved and sponsored maintenance event and accordingly meets departmental guidelines for attendance by all Military Services, agencies, and industries. With this year’s topic of Maintaining the Joint Force Competitive Advantage through Innovative, Agile, and Adaptive Capabilities, participants had the opportunities to engage with experts in a range of topics that included, modernizing and enhancing facilities, public-private partnerships, software sustainment challenges and solutions, and many more.
Two competitions were highlights at this year’s symposium. The Maintenance Innovation Challenge pitted six available technologies – the challenge finalists – and their innovative uses in the maintenance realm against each other for Overall and People’s Choice award winners. A big shout out to NCMS member and MIC Finalist Robert Yurko and everyone at Spectro Scientific for their presentation of their technology Expeditionary Hydraulic Fluid Analysis. For the first time ever, the Aerospace Maintenance Council hosted the Defense Maintenance Competition, testing the aircraft maintenance abilities of ten teams of three from the military and local colleges.
Getting member industries as much exposure as possible fits into NCMS’s mission and the Maintenance Symposium is one of the best venues for that to happen. With the CTMA program, NCMS has become a leader in government/industry collaboration for maintenance activities and is the trusted source to help fill technology gaps. This year we were so proud of all of our Project Mangers and sponsoring companies and thank everyone for their hard work.
See you next year in Tampa!
To learn more about the DoD Maintenance Symposium please visit www.sae.org/DOD. Or for information about the booth or CTMA please contact Debra Lilu