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Show 2 July 1999 nop csiSsao o by Bill Orndorff Hilltop Times editor The value of depot work, the Expedi- r1 Li tionary Aerospace Force concept and other subjects were addressed when Whit Peters, acting Secretary of the Air Force, spoke at Hill's Focus on Defense Symposium last week. The annual symposium followed the theme "Logistics Support Concepts for the New Millenium," and is sponsored by the Air Force Association. Peters was keynote speaker for the June 23 program. EAF Concept Getting back into the Expeditionary Aerospace Force construct is seen by Peters as a major challenge. " (Hill) is the home of the 388th Fighter number one, the Wing. This is EAF-AE-F lead wing. It is a great honor but also a great responsibility and I think we have a few airplanes to give Col. Mike Hostage but we are still going to get into EAF," Peters said. "I think it's really critical to get into that pace of life that will cut obstacles. Wre've been talking with Secretary Cohen and Qoint Chiefs of Staff chairman) Gen. Henry Shelton about getting some relief from operations tempo and let our people have a rest" Displaying a chart that showed where the Air Force has been during the last 12 months, Peters said about 25 percent of a larger the force structure deployed was force of the than deployed percentage in Vietnam or the Gulf War in 1991. "About a month ago we had over 25,000 people deployed TDY across the globe, about 15,000 of them for Kosovo, and we had another 24,000 people in Europe fully engaged, 24 by 7, doing Kosovo operations," Peters said. "So 49,000 people were engaged in contingency operations out of a total force of just over 360,000 of which about 220,000 actually are people deployed. "They say at the same time we're going to scale down operations to let people rest, then we're told to stand up three forward operating locations in South America to cover for the Drug War. They are dropping ordnance almost every night over Iraq we are very busy." Spare Parts Peters said predicting spare parts usage is a continuing challenge. "When we don't have spare parts on the flight line, it means people have to can aircraft and that triples the work of the maintenance force, which is unfair and the wrong thing to happen. We need to get this right," he said. "(Gen.) George Babbitt, (commander of Air Force Materiel Command), had the courage and I think great judgment to call in Rand Corporation and asked them to look at whaf s right and whaf s wrong with the acquisition system and logistics system. This Rand study concluded that since 1990 we have had wave after wave of logis- - life) tics revolutions but none of them have ever been fully implemented," Peters said. He said drawdowns have reduced experience levels to the point that new ideas can't be pushed through. "At this point our only strategy is better tracking and new information technology to try and make it easier for people who deal with spare parts to predict whaf s necessary and why," Peters said. "We also have heavily invested in subsystem modernization programs to try and detect the surprises that come as the systems age, primarily in avionics. "If anybody has BrauH92Vu some good ideas on how to predict cost-effecti- When workloads spare parts requirements, we'd love to start moving, Ogden will go from a very under hear them." Peters said they are working with Babbitt to come up utilized facility tO One that is fully utilized, indeed over the next several years. with the Bow Wave how many parts do we really have to buy to get inventories back to what we really need over-utiliz- ed since predicting parts requirements is difficult "We are working Whit Peters Acting Secretary of the Air Force with several ferent problems dif- with inventory," he said. "One, is the very long lead time. Jet engine parts have lead times up to 24 months. We've looked at traffic to try to get that: down. We're working with other vendors to try to figure out ways to get lead times down. We also are working with Air Mobility Command which has the ability to send worldwide express, which is basically Ted-eral Express' for military spare parts. "We have looked to industry as prime vendors for some of these aircraft, and I'm here to tell you that industry hasn't done any better than we have." Depots Calling depots a very important part of the supply system, Peters said there have been several discussions about what to do with government-owned- , government-operate- d depots. "We think depots are necessary for a num- ber of important functions. Often the depot is the only real competitor for parts. If we can't do it ourselves, we aren't going to be able to judge the fairness of prices or get more prices from industry," he said. "Depots are very competent places that do very good work at prices that we are getting into the same ballpark as commercial. What we want to do with the depots is keep the ones we've got, make sure they have reserve past the surge, try to keep their prices in line but periodically compete them with industry to make sure they are staying efficient." ' Hill.AFB At a December meeting on depots, officials decided three depots is the right number, based on capacity and workloads, Peters said. "The depots are OK right now from the standpoint of capital investment, but they-won- 't be forever. We also need to stop what I refer to as 'selling the right to do logistics' to industry as part of the initial decision to purchase the equipment," he said. "We have done that in a number of airframes, but thaf s not necessarily a sound way to go or, in the long term, the most way to and value. best the go We need to make sure as we bring the systems on line that we bokathowwe're going to do the logistics for the systems, and make sure technical capa- - bilitiesinthedepotas well as industry so we have a mixed industrial base for the forsee-abl- e future." Core concept Discussing the core concept, Peters said it involved two areas. ' "One, having the righttechnologieswith people trained for those technologies in the depot. To have that group of people there, you have to have work, so you need to assign work to various places, various systems, to depots in order to ensure a ready controlled source of technical competence." He said assigning a depot for separate weapon systems wasn't necessary. Instead, technically competent people and good facilities could take workloads on short notice as needed to deal with various situations. "Our sense is thaf s where core is going to lay out in the next few years," he said. "Obviously, if s coming down partly because of consolidations of depots and partly e because of competitions. But of right now if s par t the law that keeps us public-privat- at50-50.- " The second area, Core Phis is needed as additional capacity for warfighter requirements. "If s a safety net For example, if no one makes the part then we need someone to make it There are lots of parts like that today. We also need to have a rapid and flexible response as the Ogden depot did by rapidly moving up on overtime, doing a lot of smart things to move items out to Kosovo," Peters said. "We also need to recognize the fact that all of our depots have won the public-p- competitions and they are entitled to have that work done. "When workloads start moving, Ogden d will go from a very facility to one that is fully utilized, indeed over-ut-k rivate under-utilize- Saturday Friday Today ve pare parts lized over the next several years. That's going to be good news for the Air Force because it will drive the hourly rate down significantly, down $20 to $30 an hour to make Ogden a very good place." Peters said a "depot road map" is being prepared as part of a common plan for depot work. Kosovo lessons Peters noted the success of cruise missiles caused them to become the air-launch- ed "weapon of choice." "All of a sudden we couldn't keep them in the storage yard. We shoot them faster than we ever expected to shoot them to a point where we have very few left," Peters said. "We have one yard using the supplemental appropriation we got from Kosovo to build another 400 CALCMS out of the ALCMs we still have and don't need any more because of the START treaties." "I think there's a fundamental question how important we need to ask ourselves will the lack of collateral damage be? We have never before fought a war where the standard is zero collateral damage," he said. "Indeed if s remarkable for us in the Pentagon that our successes on the battlefield are always outnumbered by the morning' s report of bombs that fell short or bombs that went long and if there were casualties. From the beginning, Secretary (of Defense William) Cohen said there are going to be casualties in this war you don't have a war and not have casualties". People Peters had praise for workers that set up in Italy, Hungary and other areas. I "I cannot say enough about people think they are the best part of what happened here," he said. "We had an absolutely remarkable group of people that set up these air bases civil engineers, security forces, hundreds of people. In fact the Services folks at Aviano set up a tent city for 4,000 people in one week, which has got to be a new Guinness World Record. If s not just the aircrews the aircrews did a lot of hard work, but our people across the board did just absolutely remarkable work. I've never seen anything quite as uplifting as seeing our young people making humanitarian airlifts possible for all the refugees. "First of all, they're the group that got us in there, got us out of the mud and got us operating in less than 24 hours. They got us fully operational and basically took charge of that airport and all the international humanitarian aid." 12 mini-base- s He told how the 86th Contingency Response at Ramstein Group started with one AB, Germany, on Easter morning, and by with humanitarian that evening, the supplies were landing. Aweek later, tents were up and food was being served. Two weeks later, the area was reorganized with C-1- 30 C-1- 7s security barriers and bomb-sniffin- dogs g in place. Sunday Monday 5-d- ay weather outlook I I - i 86Q High 60Q Low Partly cloudy UA7i7.2irfiGld-opsJil.af.milosonQatIi- 8r v ' : Jj I v- - ,J ' j v x, -- 81QHigh 62Q Low 849 High 569 Low 80e High 59Q Low 829 High 609 Low Most cloudy with isolated thunder- - Most cloudy with isolated thunder- - Partly cloudy Partly showers showers ElGcerdGd cloudy uoatSier info 777-204- 3 - |