Technology Roadmapping for USMC Maintenance Depots
NCMS Project #: 140369
Problem: Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) office, approved a pilot technology roadmapping exercise be conducted at the Marine Corp Depots at Albany, Georgia and Barstow, California. This roadmapping methodology had emerged from NCMS roadmapping and technology innovation/adoption collaborations with many of its industrial members. One such NCMS project, entitled the Management of Accelerated Technology Innovation (MATI), dealt with technology management issues and was a collaboration of companies including IBM, Lucent Technologies, GM, Ford, Motorola, Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola, Siemens-Westinghouse, Baxter Healthcare, Roche, et al.
The resultant roadmaps would be useful for NCMS and OSD to identify future collaborative projects to be formed between NCMS industrial members and the various Maintenance Depots. An additional benefit would be for the Depots themselves to have a technology roadmap that would span the changes in their command.
Benefit: The resultant roadmaps were of benefit to OSD and CTMA activities by facilitating the identification of collaborative needs between the Depots and industry.
Potential Readiness Benefits: Technology roadmapping can be a useful tool in long term planning and sustainment activities of DoD Depots, assuring that future needs are in focus and capabilities match Warfighter/Weapons Systems’ R&O demands.
Solution/Approach: A roadmap describes a future environment, objectives to be achieved within that environment, and plans for how those objectives will be achieved over time. For Maintenance Depots, the objective of the roadmap was to assure the technology capabilities and skills that DoD customers will need in the future are first identified and then planned for implementation by the Depots.
A roadmap connects and balances the drivers of customer needs (“customer pull”) and technology innovation (“technology push”).
Maintenance Depot Roadmaps addressed four topics:
- Definition and Scope. “Know-why” the Depot is creating the capabilities: Set the strategic direction for the organization; define key customer segments and identify and prioritize a list of customer drivers (the needs and applications most important to customers); identify competitors, competitive approaches, and potential partners.
- Depot Capability Roadmap. “Know-what” capabilities to build over time: What capabilities/characteristics/features are most important; link customer/application drivers to specific capabilities that will be required over time; set multi-year targets for capabilities; define the architecture of the facility (the framework in which the capabilities will be implemented).
- Technology Roadmap. “Know-how” the Depot will build or acquire: What technologies are most important; link drivers to technologies and their development or acquisition over time; identify key technology investments needed to maintain competitiveness. (The technology roadmap covers development and acquisition of both hardware and skills.)
- Summary and Action Plan. “To-do lists:” key action plans to develop or acquire the needed technologies including what resources and investments are needed; implementation projects having the highest priorities; technology investment assessments for the most important areas; identification of and tracking of risk areas.
Impact on Warfighter: None directly as this was a pilot demonstration of this planning methodology.
DOD Participation:
- U.S. Marine Corps Maintenance Centers (Albany, GA and Barstow, CA)
Industry Participation:
- Albright Strategy Group
- NCMS