FIELD THE FUTURE, SAFEGUARD THE PRESENT ON THE JOB


A contract painter updates Sgt. Maj. John Nelson, a U.S. Army Reserve Soldier from the 416th Theater Engineer Command (TEC) supporting a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project, in April. The project is to rehabilitate Westlake Hospital in Melrose, Illinois, into an alternate care facility during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jason Proseus, 416th TEC)


What I receive—and review daily—is a report with more than 60 pages of data on all levels of the supply chain. While contractually our industry partners are not required to furnish this information, they do so readily. Tis demonstrates the importance of communication. Te reason behind my request for this lengthy, in-depth report is to inform Army senior leaders and to assist our industry partners while ensuring the health and safety of their workforces.


For example, steps have been taken to maintain financial stability of critical defense contractors. Progress payments may be expedited for large contractors from 80 percent to 90 percent, and small business payments expedited from 85 percent to 95 percent. In addition, we are also able to change our normal payment period that a customer has to pay their outstanding bill from 30 days to 15 days, so that primes can pay their subcontrac- tors. Te Army is committed to making sure we do the right thing to help industry


6 Army AL&T Magazine Summer 2020


resolve problems and challenges while mitigating the impact of COVID-19.


EYES FORWARD As I have said on several occasions, you can’t assemble armored vehicles by tele- phone or computer. You’ve got to have welders in the factory. Te Army and our Soldiers are depending on those workers to deliver capabilities, and we want to ensure that they are healthy and safe in fulfilling their commitment to our men and women in uniform.


Part of my official duties and responsibil- ities is exercising civilian control over the entirety of Army acquisition. Not only are we responsible for programmatic over- sight of the Army’s 31-plus-three priority programs, we are also responsible for more than 600 other programs. Tat means we have a lot of industrial partners to be concerned about.


Indeed, we have industry partners who have had to temporarily close and reopen


as a result of the pandemic. Tere are others that have had to rethink their work- spaces or disinfect them between shifts, as we have done in many of our offices. Our prime contractors tend to be larger and more capable of weathering those kinds of events. It’s the smaller companies, with 20 or maybe 30 people who make cables or circuit boards or some other important component of a major weapon system, that are of more concern—if someone becomes ill and has been in close proximity with others, the entire company may lose at least 14 days in quarantine.


When something happens to a prime contractor’s supply chain, we work to execute those portions of the program not dependent upon those components. We keep moving forward, as a team. We have been and will continue to be support- ive of our industrial base and its supply chains to ensure that they can continue to help us procure existing weapon systems and develop new, priority systems. We are tracking each program, and all appear


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