efforts on new or advanced technologies and vehicles.
We are leveraging investments made across the Army and industry’s broad portfolio to develop solutions that can be used to modernize existing platforms and advance new capabilities. Tese advances have the potential to redefine the Army’s fleet of combat vehicles. Technologies such as hybrid electric drive (HED) pro- vide electrical power to support emerging technologies such as high-energy lasers, radio frequency emitters and electro- magnetic systems in ways we could never have imagined on board a combat platform. HED provides that electricity without adding an entire power system to the vehicle, saving significant space and weight while enhancing overall system performance. Incorporation of future power generation technologies is also much simpler with HED technology. Anything that generates electricity can be plugged in to power the system, such as directed-energy weapons.
SUPPORTING THE SUPPLIER BASE Equal to the challenge of sustaining our engineering and technology capabilities is the challenge we face with our manu- facturing and supplier base. At BAE Systems, we have leveraged the advances in lean and flexible manufacturing pro- cesses and practices that allowed us to surge in support of the Middle East con- flicts so that we can “gracefully” manage the downturn. We have consolidated production lines and programs; we have identified critical employees with unique and core skills; we have built a manufacturing organization that bene- fits from a diverse throughput to sustain capability while operating at signifi- cantly lower workloads than in the past. As we look to the future, this same lean thinking will enable us to flexibly adjust
our workforce and facilities in support of new requirements, although not with the same surge capacity the Army has enjoyed in the past.
Similarly, we have worked with our sup- plier base, largely grounded in small businesses that serve unique defense requirements. Tese include businesses that have unique capabilities unavail- able anywhere else. We have helped them streamline their processes and produc- tion lines and identify alternate work to sustain capability; we have mentored and guided troubled businesses; and we have encouraged diversification to manage risk. Despite these efforts, we are seeing a transition of that supplier base away from the defense industry, as their order books will no longer support their core business needs. Tis critical but often overlooked component of the industrial base may prove to be the hardest to sustain, and in the long run may represent the greatest cost and availability to reconstitute when we once again need it.
CONCLUSION Ultimately, we all face the same challenge. It is not an Army issue or an industry issue; it is our issue. We are inextricably linked. Te question is: “How do we live to fight another day?” Tere are not many acquisition programs out there today, but there are exciting opportunities in tech- nology development and integration that will provide the Army with the future capabilities to meet needs we do not understand today.
Te defense industry as a whole is going to continue to experience challenges; how we collectively face them will determine our mutual success or failure. Although these challenges will not mean the end of our major factories or a catastrophic fail- ure of our supply base, we are navigating through a growing number of significant
issues more strategically than in years past in order to secure a future for new technologies and programs.
We remain optimistic. Tere are exciting new technologies that will enable a new generation of capabilities we could not have imagined 20 years ago; they are real, they are here and they are ready to sup- port an Army that will protect us as we face a dangerous future. Our challenge, as well as the Army’s challenge, will be maintaining our ability to seize on these exciting technologies
and build new capability into the Army of the future.
Although this is a difficult period, we know that there will be a bottom and that the needs of our services will result in a rebound in the defense industry. Te skills and experience that supported the country’s needs in the surge are still sup- porting the industrial base.
MR. MARK SIGNORELLI is BAE Systems’ vice president and general manager, Combat Vehicles, focused on tracked and wheeled vehicle markets serving
both U.S. and
international customers. He joined BAE Systems through the former United Defense in 1997 after serving 21 years as a field artillery officer in the U.S. Army, a career that culminated with an assignment as assistant deputy director for operations in the National Military Command Center. Before that, he served in a wide variety of command and staff positions in III Corps, the 1st Cavalry Division, Eighth U.S. Army, U.S. Field Artillery School and 72nd Field Artillery Brigade. During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Signorelli served as the 1st Cavalry Division artillery operations officer in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. He holds a B.S. in zoology from the University of Florida.
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