Department of Defense Perspective

The readiness of America’s fighting force hinges on the effectiveness of the public and private sectors of the Department of Defense (DoD) maintenance enterprise. Maintenance technology is key to addressing the DoD’s maintenance effectiveness and ensuring weapon systems are readily
available to America’s Warfighters. And the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) Program is our primary avenue for crosscollaboration and technology sharing with the private sector, academia, and among the DoD services. The CTMA Program has been meticulously engineered to encourage and execute collaborative maintenance-technology-focused partnerships efficiently, rapidly, and effectively. Our CTMA cooperative agreement and initiative execution processes enable DoD’s organic and commercial maintainers to aggressively address the broad
spectrum of maintenance challenges. The primary focus areas for CTMA in 2017 include: Additive Manufacturing, Autonomic Logistics, Business Processes/Partnerships, Condition Based Maintenance (CBM+), Coatings/Corrosion Prevention, Enhanced Inspection, Reliability Improvement,
Training, and Energy, Environment, Health and Safety Improvements.

The CTMA team, which primarily consists of Program Managers and Contract Specialists at the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS), averages just 90 days from idea conception to collaborative DoD-industry team execution. The Managers and Contract Specialists are true maintenance technology transition professionals who are not only masters of the technologies in their portfolios, but also are experts in how DoD maintenance operations and business processes work. This truly unique skill set guarantees that great ideas transition to great maintenance capabilities and allows DoD customers to focus the technical direction of initiatives rather than the more administrative tasks of organizing team meetings, developing documentation, and writing reports.

In what is now my thirteenth year working with CTMA we have seen approximately $1 billion in cost reductions provided to the DoD community through this collaborative venue. Let’s make the most out of this rare opportunity to gather as a community to discuss the challenges we face
today and will face tomorrow in order to address them head-on as partners – sharing common goals and finding areas of mutual benefits. Come, join us, and let’s ensure readiness for our Warfighters now and in the future!