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AMC to manage TRADOC training fleets

By Tesia Williams
May 3, 2006

FORT BELVOIR, Va. (Army News Service, May 3, 2006) – The responsibility for managing and sustaining training base equipment is transferring to the U.S. Army Materiel Command using a phased approach, AMC officials announced recently.

Under the Fleet Management Initiative, AMC provides fleet maintenance and supply support to U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command training fleets, thereby allowing AMC to centralize the management of related functions and applying process-improvement methodologies.

Currently, numerous maintenance programs exist at all levels and often under multiple contracts, said Jim Sullivan, director, AMC Strategic Planning and Integration, G-5.

Furthermore, since there was no central oversight or coordination of maintenance programs, competition for the same repair parts and contract labor force would often occur, he added.

With FMI, synchronization of maintenance and supply activities creates efficiencies and enhances long-term planning for scarce parts and application of process improvement-methodologies, AMC officials said.

In February 2002, a study was conducted on the feasibility and desirability of transferring the TRADOC maintenance and supply mission to AMC. The rationale for the transfer was to optimize AMC’s core competencies and execute a mission transfer that would allow TRADOC to focus on their primary mission of training.

Successful pilot programs were completed at Forts Knox and Rucker’s armor and aviation schools, respectively. Therefore, a decision was made to expand the logistics support arrangement – improving readiness of training base fleets within TRADOC, including fleets located at Forts Benning, Sill, Lee and Leonard Wood.

The aircraft at Fort Rucker fly two to three times the average monthly hours of aircraft in the field with the exception of those deployed to support the war effort. As a result, some of the oldest aircraft in the Army fly one-third of the active-Army flight hours with only one-fourth of the Army’s aircraft, said Oliver B. Bonner Jr., maintenance director, Integrated Materiel Management Center, Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command.

“FMI has impacted the repair and maintenance processes [at Fort Rucker] by optimizing repair/buy decisions based on triage review, improving time-on wing for repaired and overhauled components, reducing repetitive government/contractor inspections, and increasing parts/components availability,” Bonner said.

In addition, most components of the fleet at Fort Knox’s Armor Center have improved operational readiness rates, with only a few components losing ground, due primarily to hard-to-get parts, said Shelley Antle, director, Directorate of Resource and Logistics Management, U.S. Army Armor Center.

“One of the key advantages for maintenance and sustainment at Fort Knox has been AMC forward repair programs conducted on-site to include M1A1 tank engine repair and the M88 recovery vehicle refurbishment ‘fly away team’,” Antle said.

These actions improve operational readiness rates and get equipment back on line and in the field to meet our mission to train Soldiers, Antle added.

(Editor’s note: Tesia Williams writes for the Army Material Command Public Affairs Office.)