Does the DLO suck?

[cumulus]

Interesting to read NAO reports on supplies during Iraq war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3309611.stm


We have DLO magazine at work, and according to that everything was all rinky-dink, all key objectives met etc. Much of it was in Thargian management speak, but they were definately giving themselves pat on the back treatment.:suspect:

[Sideshow Bob]

They did manage to get me a desert flying suit. Mind you I had flown my last sortie by the time it arrived in theatre.

[pr00ne]

Cumulus,

Boy does it! As does the DPA!

In the 21st Century, with no direct conventional military threat to the UK and an aggressive expeditionary political policy what on earth is the RAF doing owning, managing (mismanaging) and faffing around with billions of £ worth of spares?

Put decent power by the hour and "hole in the wall" support contracts in place that demand very high availability rates, with in built surge allowances and contracts that allow the companies providing the service to make a decent profit. Then watch availability and sustanability rates surge!

The MoD has had a half hearted attempt at delivering this sort of deal with the likes of C130J and some GR4 contracts, but has gone down the road of awarding penny pinching deals that do not allow the true capability of this sort of deal to come anywhere near it's potential.

In this way, you can reduce huge purchase contracts with their massive up front costs by providing for decent amounts of money to be spent annually on up to the minute state of the art kit.

Along with spares provision you can make the contractor responsible for updating and ensuring spares are compliant and on spec, that way we avoid the embarrasement of issues like FM immunity and 8.33 radio spacing.

This way we can concenttate on maximising bang for the buck by providing our service personnel with the very latest equipment, in the right quantities, with funding ensuring that we actually have it when we need it. We would also ensure that we have the right number of people involved in the front line and that the support element becomes just that, a genuine support effort and not a career track for senior officers headed for a knighthood and a directorship!

Please doin't tell me we can't afford it, we spend £34billion on defence!!!!

[cumulus]

I have a funny little story to relate on this subject, not sure what it proves, but here goes. A few years ago, I was on frigate deployed to the Gulf. One day in Bahrain, we ordered two items. One was stores to clear a major OPDEF, (operational defect), via the stores organisation. The other was a part for our mess intercom, which I ordered from Maplins, using their website. Now, bearing in mind that is was a big defect, and we were apparently at the top of the queue for stores, AND were the foremost Naval unit confounding Saddam's knavish tricks at the time, imagine my surprise when the bit from Maplins turned up first (it took 3 days). The OPDEF kit, which was available in stores, took a further 5 days.:confused:

[Follow Me Through]

pr00ne

Have looked at Just-In-Time and other supply systems in detail and fully appreciate the lean, efficient supply structure they provide. However, while they are excellent across a wide cross-section of manufacturing models they have no place in the most important insurance policy a country holds - that is its military.

I have seen 'hole-in-the-wall' work with the C-17 but I consider that to be workable due to the small scale of the fleet involved.

Bottom line - in manufacturing when the company fails to meet its contractual requirements you take it to court and maybe bankrupt it. When a company fails to meet its contractual requirements to support military ops it is too late and the consequences are potentially dire - not least for the poor sods in the front-line without the kit.

The other drawback is that the military needs to train with the equipment before the conflict and in large numbers to experience the 'frictions-of-war' that those numbers produce.

[Mr C Hinecap]

pr00ne

Not wishing to 'diss' you, but it sounds like you have some grasp of the business concepts you mention, but not of the military applications of the equipment.
I am a stacker, and I have seen both aspects of what you are talking about. Some things work like that, and some never will. The military needs to own spares in some fields. When we step up a gear, more of that kit needs to be available to push forward, and for the increased use. We have seen the failure to meet surge requirements in low value assets (desert DPM, boots etc) and the damage that does. If that were across everything we did, there would be far more men and women not coming home.

There cannot be a single approach to support and sustainment. We need to have the different contracts/approaches for the different ranges of equipment. Granted, many of them are utter pants (including some of the hole in the wall). Partnership with the contractors is not a new idea and works in many areas. We can't go out and buy the newest shiny kit all the time - military kit needs a long life to avoid the training burden and the in-life support needs to be there. No point in having the newest singing, dancing thing if there are no spares to be sent to our latest front line.

I think many of our procurements are hampered by over-ambitious requirements, bad contracts, and bad execution. However, we are a huge organization that is more diverse than most of the commercial world can comprehend. We need all that 'stuff' just to do our business. I've worked with industry and they have trouble comprehending a '24/7/365 truly global, not near a major port/airport, lives depend on our work' operation. If you want to get into the less glam nuts & bolts, please PM me.

[Jobza Guddun]

"what on earth is the RAF doing owning, managing (mismanaging) and faffing around with billions of £ worth of spares?"

Pr00ne,

Don't mean to be rude, but if you're on about the RAF, WHAT SPARES?

The situation is definitely better than it was even a few years ago (mid-90's were abominable), but as a front-line user, I see situations most weeks where aircraft are grounded awaiting spares for days on end, and sometimes for ridiculous items such as bolts, clamps or even split pins, never mind expensive stuff. That, I agree, is probably mis-management, but there's still not enough of the bigger stuff when we need it, and what we do have needs to be closer to the end users, not necessarily at Stafford.

At least we don't ROB any more,eh.......


Jobznotalwaysaguddun.

:ok:

[pr00ne]

Mr C Hinecap,

I have actually done the rounds thanks, whilst now happily ensconced in the IT industry I began my career flying some forgotten old bit of kit called an FGR2 at a now closed base not far from the Dutch border.
From there, via Learning Command, into the world of law, commercial aspects of military out sourcing and Logistics support came my way sort of accidentally and now in the world of networking.

Most of what you say I agree with, there will always be a percentage of RAF supplied equipment, I just think from the tax payers point of view that should be the absolute minumum.

The forces are not the only people playing the 25/7 365 day a year game, the major UK retailers have been at this for a while and are the best on the planet at it.

Follow me through,

If it works for 4 it will work for 400.
Genuine innovation is called for in support of military operations, the front line must always be uniformed but it doesen't all need to be regular, the support infrastructure at homeplate should ALL be contracted. Spares moved forward in support of surge flying can be treated just as spares fitted to the aircraft, RAF owned and an RAF responsibility until no longer required.

This can be done, I just doubt the currrent senior 'movers and fixers' have the knowledge or the balls.


The concerns expressed about management of risk and penalties for default are all valid, but these can all be managed and concerns allayed.

Anyway, you'd all better become accustomed to it because that is the way of the future, JSF, Eurofighter, MRA4, A400M will all go down this route.

It CAN be made to work to the advantage of the user, the RAF frontline. It will just require major changes in the support world and in RAF engineering practices. These are all changing slowly, the whole thing just needs picking up and shaking out radically.

[Jackonicko]

"Put decent power by the hour and "hole in the wall" support contracts in place that demand very high availability rates, with in built surge allowances and contracts that allow the companies providing the service to make a decent profit. Then watch availability and sustanability rates surge!"

Yeah, right. It might work in some areas where there are potentially competing suppliers, or with a nationalised industry operating in a command economy but it will not work where the only viable option is to hand over the support contract to an entirely monopolistic Design Authority whose sole interest is in maximising short term shareholder value.

Especially when that DA is BAE, whose record on providing support, upgrades, etc. has been quite so lamentable.

As usual, inappropriate civvy accountancy procedures are being applied.

The services have thoroughly amortised bases, infrastructure and facilities, and the spares we're speaking of have often been bought and paid for.

[pr00ne]

JN,

Name me one Design Authority that isn't 'entirely monopolistic'? They all are, it's a function of their role in life.

If you think that BAE are a hard cooky to deal with you've obviously had no commercial dealings with the likes of Boeing and Lockheed Martin!

Accountancy proceduress are just that, accountancy procedures, I fail to see how them applying to the military somehow makes them "inappropriate"?

These "thoroughly amortised bases, infrastructure and facilities", are in fact thoroughly antique and whoefully inadequate with outdated and underfunded facilities dating back in some cases to the mid-nineteen thirties.

As for the spares being bought and paid for, that's partly the problem, investment in a usually inadequate spares provisioning is indemic to the RAF front line and has been for decades. The problem is going to grow and grow in an age where so much of the really important kit is software driven and faces early obscolecence. This has hit the MOD time after time in the last ten years and they are just not up to it.
Make it the contractors responsibility and you don't have to worry about it, it becomes their problem.

The main issue for the UK MOD is that they want everything on the cheap, and power by the hour does not come cheap.