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New Member |
RE: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,183147,00.html
The military in general has a screwed up system for estimating the need for parts and the procurement of them. The entire procurement and logistic support systems are in dire need of major change. An example is the USAF and the B-52 in the 90's. While congress was extending the number of planes to be kept in service, the AF was scrapping parts that were no longer made or available, and the parts were needed to support the B-52s still in service. No allowances were made for the additional planes kept in service by congressional mandate. The end result was that whatever parts were left were consumed at a faster than estimated rate, since they were spread over the larger number of planes. |
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New Member |
Just sounds like another slippery deal of over buying and someone is getting overly paid under some military table.The agreement was made in the head at the building with eight sides
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The Octagon?  |
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Member |
It appears the services are no better or worst than actual weathermen in forcasting. They do a good job when they are correct 50% of the time.
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New Member |
The GAO is a horse laugh in its self!!!. THey are the ones about 25 years ago that was paying $600.00 for toilet seats (each). They are the ones that Pays A manufacter to tool up a die to manufacter Screws. And pays for the Tooling Die. Which after the Die tool is made the Price should be for the manufactor of the screws. But no The GAO keeps Paying the same price just like the die had to be made every time the screws were ordered again!!!. other wise the GAO was not checking their contracts,their leasons were probable pocketing the extra money and keeping their mouths shut???.I remember having to order some screws at one time and the price in the military manual that covered the Amount, the cost, the Unit of measure . and for (100) One half inch sheet metal screws it cost about $75.00. Other words each screw cost about $7.50 each!!!. I my self still can not figure where the army abuses the supply system. Thats why we have Inspector general inspections And even then we have to hide what we do have. If we want to stay combat ready. other wise the army would be waiting on parts so as to go to war!!!.The GAO needs to check their own out rediculas practices's
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Member |
Heaven forbid that the bean counters ever get to force 'just in time supply' rules on the Military while they are conducting combat operations.
While it may be ok for a car to be down for an extra couple of days or weeks sitting around in the states, you can not afford to have a combat system down waiting on something to be made in the states and shipped over to a combat zone. When you go back and look at combat operations from a pre-conflict to after-conflict point of view, many items are consumed at much higher rates than the worst case forcasts and some items are consumed at lower rates. When planning for operations that change in the course of a long term operation it is a given that you will have too much of some things and too few of others - nature of the beast. Especially when the operation shifts focus. When congress pokes its nose into things it gets even worse. When I had a Chapparal Battery (late 80s) in Germany during the Cold war (which thank God did not go Hot) for our wartime resupply of missiles was 1.4 per system per day. And this was sitting in an area that expected to be in the middle of an Independent Air Operation (3 waves of 1000+ aircraft in the first two hours). I talked to the Patriot people and they expected to Fire Out their full Basic Load plus a 100% resupply in the first day (if they lived that long). The practical matter was for many combat units they had their basic Load and one resupply, and could expect one more resupply IF it could be gotten up from the rear areas. After all, stocking all that ammunition and the capability to move it just in case we had a war was too expensive for the bean counters. |
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New Member |
This is typical of big gov.boon-doggle.I'm amazed at the waste in every branch of gov.Just goes to show the gov. screws up all the time & costs the tax-payers billions,but who do you think gives a R----ss?
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Highly Experienced Member |
The $600 tolet seats are a myth. What happened is that some Pols misrepresented a standard accounting technique to get some press and help get re-elected. This technique is no longer used for government contracts because it can be misrepresented. The way it worked is that a "kit" (group of part, sub assembly, whatever) was given a price and the cost was applied evenly to all of the parts in the kit. For a simple example if you had a $6000 assembly with 10 parts, 1 part cost $5910 and each of the other 9 parts costing $10 the accounting rules listed each part as $600. This makes the 9 $10 parts look silly but it makes the $5910 part look like a real cost saver IF someone misrepresents (lies about) what is happening. Of course the media will eat it up because they know scandles sell. This message has been edited. Last edited by: rayld2, |
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New Member |
You read something like:
and history makes you just dread reading a follow-up to this story sometime in the future where that "calibration tool" is revealed to be a $55K ruler that is available at K-Mart for $0.59. |
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Member |
Re-up and Fix It!
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New Member |
Having been in aviation for 22 years I will not defend the technical supply system because it certainly has its flaws. This article is guilty of the same sensationalism that all media seems to suffer from these days. During combat ops as was stated above you can't sit around and wait on parts to be made and shipped. Assets can not sit on the ground or in a motor pool. They have to be in the fight to be effective. The major problem in my experience is the inconsistances with the way that the contracts are being written for the parts. The example of paying for creation of dies for screws that already have been made is a good one. When the aviation community recieves a Safety of Flight it can mean that entire lot numbers of expensive parts have to be taken out of service immediately and replaced. If we do not have a substantial war stock to replace part in those situations we are dead in the water. The majority of time the SOFs are because manufactures failed to make the parts to specs. If a manufacture is fired the time it takes to recontract, tool up and get parts to the end user can, and usually is, years. War cost money. Being ready for war cost even more money. If you look at the numbers sited in the article and compare them to the vast amount of money wasted on failed projects in the states which are nothing more the pork for the states were they exsist it not even close. The real story should be about manufactures who deliver substandard parts and equipment and still get paid. That is until there is a death and then they get fired and we start all over with the lowest bid.
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New Member |
I served as the Director of Materiel Management at the Army Missile Command (MICOM), Redstone Arsenal, AL from 1991-1993. IOW, I "owned" every Army missile repair part and major assembly in the depot supply system.
We came under fire early during that time, from GAO and Army Logistics Command, for buying excess repair parts. Sure enough, I looked into it in great detail, and found that many items could be contracted directly with a signature from an Item Manager (IM), a DA civilian in the average grade of GS5-GS9, a Branch Chief at grade GS11-12, or Division Chief at GM13-15. Remember we had just completed some very successful warfighting in Desert Storm aka The Gulf War. During that buildup and followon, NO ONE wanted a missile system to be down for lack of parts, especially the IM, who felt responsible and certainly didn't want the blame for a bad situation. I decided to try an experiment. I decreed that any purchase of any part that exceeded the computer generated Supply Control Study could only be approved at Director-level, by me or my GM-15 deputy. I got hundreds on my desk in a few short months! Once in a while, I could be convinced that the computer might not reflect real-world usage, but by and large, I disapproved nearly every one. Eventually, I quit getting them unless there was a serious argument to support it. Bottom line -- we saved a wheelbarrow full of cash, but I cannot remember the actual figure now. MICOM became the best at controlling excess purchases instead of the worst of the other Commodity Commands. I even tried to stop some procurement already ongoing, but that turned out to be more expensive, in many cases, than "buying excess", due to default penalties and the like. The major point here is to get the procurement authority at a level consistent with the sound decision-making required. |
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New Member |
Now if we can get the enemy to contact the bean counters in GAO, and tell them just how they plan to fight us, GAO can come up with the perfect supply system.
Years ago, I was educated by my First Sergeant, who advised me candidly "You can't shoot a Due-Out Slip". It was a lesson that I took to heart. If we have excess inventory because we anticipated the use of one kind of helicopter and events dictated the use of another kind, the supply specialists who had parts should be given a medal, and the guys who came up short should be assigned to jobs more in line with their capabilities. I really fail to see the significance of this GAO Report, beyond the fact that it is just one of many that will be "released" in the near future. GAO is just doing its part to prepare the taxpayers for an announcement that the Wars we are in now are just too expensive, and military spending will be slashed again. Its all part of the plan - "Change We Can Believe In". |
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New Member |
Determine the specific parts. Determine in which state they are manufactured. Determine what senators and congressmen represent those manufacturers. Audit those elected officials and the manufacturers.......follow the money.
The ususal suspects made money again. Who cares? Nobody listens and nobody cares. More important to a lot of people is the negative story concerning the US Army......NOT who got the money. |
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New Member |
It is always good to have a few extra parts, But I Guess I don't know the supply system in todays military... The part you need may not be on hand except in a Supply Sgts kit bag and he can come up with it while the item is on order.. and thus keeping the unit running>
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New Member |
Suppose we could sell them to our allies? They might have a use for them. Better than us having to keep them just to maintain them.
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