Comanche - A Logistician's Perspective

Program Manager, Sept, 2000 by Charles J. Reading

Complete Flow of Information Vital

Getting through the Comanche Advanced Technology Helicopter Milestone II (MSII) Review was a challenge similar to flying. "Hours of boredom intermixed with moments of panic." In this article, I will try to pass along those things done correctly and, more importantly, those things we did wrong and would do differently in the future. These, I believe, are all lessons learned that may ultimately be of some benefit to the acquisition community at large.

Document - And Start Early!

One of the earliest lessons learned concerns preparation of program documentation (Figure 1). Start this process as early as possible. A large number of program documents are the responsibility of the Logistician. Those documents prepared in-house are generally controllable; that is, you can determine a schedule and track progress on a daily basis. However, when those same documents are sent to other areas for review and approval, you lose control and, on some occasions, spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get someone within the approval organization to take the time and effort to review and approve your document. Those documents that you are responsible for, but are prepared by other organizations, will give you many sleepless nights.

Much to our amazement, not everyone from outside organizations believed that successful completion of the Comanche MSII was the single most important event in their lives and that they should immediately drop the rest of their priorities and finish any Comanche-related work. It took lots of coercion, several phone calls, and personal visits to get everything completed and approved on time.

Lesson Learned

Start program documentation as early as technically possible.

Get Senior Leadership Buy-in

Approximately five months before the actual milestone, the Comanche Supportability Division hosted a meeting in Huntsville, Ala., and presented a very detailed eight-hour overview and status of all logistics work completed in Demonstration/Validation, and planned for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase. We invited several high-level Department of Army (DA) and Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) personnel to this meeting to bring everyone up to speed on our initiatives.

The following day we traveled to the Sikorsky Flight Test Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., to observe how the Supportabiity/MANPRINT [Manpower and Personnel Integration] initiatives actually influenced the design of the Comanche. Proving very beneficial, this action ensured our senior leadership fully understood and endorsed our Supportability program. We subsequently gave this same briefing to the U.S. Army Materiel Command and the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command working-level and supervisory personnel.

Lesson Learned

Make sure your Supportability briefing is presented outside the Pentagon; it's the only way you will get enough time with senior leadership to tell your story. In addition, the review of actual hardware carries more of an impact than all the charts you can develop in a month.

Ensure Directives Are Met or Waived

In July 1999, the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) published a letter requiring that Acquisition Category ID (ACAT ID) programs address Department of Defense depot and industry capabilities and capacities no later than the MSII Defense Acquisition Board (DAB). The Army Acquisition Executive further supported this requirement. We became aware of the requirement in November 1999.

It had always been our intent to perform this analysis, though not before the MSII DAB. In fact, we had programmed funding and planned for resources in the 2003 time frame, which allowed a window to adjust for new processes and economic changes prior to the award of any support contracts (Figure 2). Due to the short suspense, and in response to the new OSD/DA directive, we immediately requested a waiver and moved the programmed study to the left as far as possible: Calendar Year 2001. While waiting for a waiver, we briefed every organization that we believed had a vested interest in our program to show that our new schedule fit within the spirit of the guidance. We received no opposition to our plan.

In January 2000, we received a waiver from DA allowing the program to proceed to the MSII DAB.

Although everyone who was briefed at OSD agreed with our approach, when the time came to "check the boxes," we had not staffed the waiver with all the right offices.

Lesson Learned

What appeared to be a minor issue could have affected our Milestone approval date. When there is a clear directive to conduct an activity, the results of that activity or appropriate waiver must be submitted to the requiring office for approval. As a minimum, coordination should be accomplished as soon as possible.

Don't Neglect Operational and Administrative Requirements

At this point, it is appropriate to discuss the last four weeks leading up to the Milestone. The Comanche/Washington pre-brief team consisted of the Program Manager, Deputy Program Manager, and the Chiefs of the Technical, Programs, and Supportability Divisions. We had a small office in Crystal City, Va., and used that as our base of operations. We pre-briefed one or two organizations each day leading up to the DAB, then met each evening to compare notes and revise (if required) the core briefing for the next day. This system worked very well, and allowed a complete flow of information across all areas.