A NEW VEHICLE FOR SAVINGS


development. LEAD personnel built the initial kits according to the TDP and, over 10 months, provided modification feedback to the designers. Te design feed- back produced two prototypes for testing. In addition to producing the modifica- tion kits themselves, LEAD also installs these kits on FMTVs (which have been acquired largely through data interchange), remounts the radars and generators from their HMMWV platform onto the FMTV systems, and then ships completed systems to units for fielding. Building prototypes with an immature design pre- sented challenges, but in the end brought a producible government-owned TDP, two prototypes for testing and manufacturing experience for LEAD.


WORTH CELEBRATING


Soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery, Fort Bragg, NC, stand at parade rest during the Rollout Ceremony of the Sentinel FMTV at LEAD, May 2014. The program’s many lessons learned could help others leverage the power of Better Buying Power. (Photo by Laura Brezinski, CMDS, PEO MS)


asked the Cruise Missile Defense Sys- tems Project Office to harden the cab and increase crew survivability within three years. Adding an armored cab exceeded the carrying capacity for the HMMWV, necessitating the switch to a different vehicle platform. Te product director decided to develop a modification kit for an FMTV and trailer that would not require modifications to the radar itself. Issuing a new contract would have required nearly two years, from inception to contract award; with an additional year from contract award to design delivery, and a further year to deliver a prototype. Tis timeline was incompat- ible with the user requirements and the Sentinel Product Office could not find an existing contract vehicle that could sup- port this work. To meet the user timeline, the product director decided to design


100 Army AL&T Magazine July-September 2015


the modification kit on an existing con- tract. Ten, the organic industrial base would be used to build the initial kits and modify the first 50 vehicles. Further, the modification kit timeline was formulated with the option to compete production of the remaining 137 systems.


AN URGENT SOLUTION Te Sentinel


team used the Prototype


Integration Facility (PIF) from the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center to design the modification kits, ensuring that the government would own the technical data package (TDP). When the PIF pro- vided the Sentinel team an initial design, the Sentinel PO sent it to LEAD for a pro- posal. Tis action resulted in the LEAD commander and Sentinel product direc- tor signing a statement of work to begin


ADAPTING TO NEW PRACTICES Te Sentinel FMTV modification pro- gram at LEAD is a new way of doing business for both the depot and the pro- gram management office, and as such, presented several significant challenges that needed to be resolved. For LEAD, this program required a new process, as the workforce and infrastructure are optimized for repair and overhaul work, which are quite different than build-to- print work—whereby LEAD builds or modifies components according to the customer’s exact specifications. Tis pre- sents a new set of workspace challenges.


Since the depot is optimized for repair and overhaul, the workspace is oriented on skill centers (e.g., welding or machin- ing), not a continuous production line. So, not only do pieces move around the floor inefficiently, they must be stored once they are completed at one work cen- ter before going to the next work center. In addition, there are cultural hurdles that do not hinder the quality of the work, but do affect cost reporting. For this modification work, the workforce


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