Project Announcement: Joint Field Service Evaluation Plan (Common Vendor)
This initiative will focus on key vendors and their components that are used across multiple military systems (such as bearings, fluid pumps, valves, gears, etc.). Although these components may have separate part numbers, and therefore managed by different organizations, they are often designed and manufactured by the same companies. While this synergy is obvious to the company (engineering personnel), it is not visible to product managers, whether in an industry product silo or a defense program manager.
The dominate failure modes (e.g. leaks, wear, corrosion, etc.) of such items dictate the failure and removal rate of the components and are typically common across multiple systems. Under this effort, the reliability, availability, and maintenance drivers for target improvements are shared by the government, OEM and ultimately all end users of the component.
The purpose of this initiative is to jointly develop and demonstrate a process for the identification, assessment and business case development for OEM and common vendor component improvements using the Army and Navy as testbeds. A process for the identification and assessment of common vendor items would apply to not only DoD but to commercial industry as well. The model would potentially be applicable in the commercial aviation, ground vehicle, and other industries. The general public would benefit through safety and reliability improvement and reduced operating cost of public transportation.
The overall benefits of cross-Service coordination of common vendor improvement efforts are significant such as: increased time on wing, increased readiness and reduced O&S cost. It will also facilitate data sharing, root cause analysis, analytic decision making and tools and methods across multiple Services’ platforms.