AUSA sustaining member profile: VSE Corp.

Army, Apr 1997

Headquarters: 2550 Huntington Ave., Alexandria, VA 22303. Number of employees: 1,200. Chief Executive Officer: D. M. Ervine.

For more than 30 years, VSE Corp. has supported the U.S. Army, beginning with its initial engineering contract with Fort Belvoir, Va., in 1963.

Over the years, VSE has expanded its capabilities to include prototype development, logistics support, data-management information services and, more recently, technology insertion onto military platforms. In today's environment of budgetary cuts, VSE continues to position itself for the 21st century, expanding its support of the U.S. Army to include the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard.

For the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, VSE provides engineering design, design prototype and producibility services for the development of an improved common bridge transport vehicle. The vehicle is used to transport and deploy bridge sections across rivers and ravines. VSE is working under a joint venture agreement with Oshkosh Truck Corp. to produce several hundred of these vehicles for use by active Army and Reserve units around the world.

Under a task order from the Office of the Chief, Army Reserve (OCAR), VSE developed an advanced technology demonstrator (ATD). Working with the Army Reserve, Army Research Laboratory and the Army Materiel Command, VSE formed a team that focused on OCAR's objectives of decreasing vehicle life cycle maintenance and increasing safety, reliability and dependability. VSE integrated all the commercial off-the-shelf technology components into the vehicle. The resulting ATD showcases the advancements, benefits and potential applications of emerging technologies which reduce the costs of maintenance, produce quieter vehicles, reduce pollution and enhance safety.

VSE has been active in the development and operation of automated configuration management (CM) and product data management (PDM) systems. In 1968, VSE developed an automated technical data/configuration management system (TD/CMS), which has been used by the U.S. Army for more than 25 years.

It recently acquired CMstat Corp. as a wholly owned subsidiary to continue its leadership in the CM arena. CMstat develops PDM and CM software, and has released a new version of its integrated PDM and CM system, which supports both Oracle and Ingres data bases, making it the first PDM/CM vendor to implement multiple commercial data base support for its customers in production environments.

VSE is also involved in power management on the battlefield. The corporation designed, developed and produced the patented TPA-20, a stand-alone power distribution unit that provides power to battery-operated military equipment, thereby reducing the use of batteries. The TPA-20, which was successfully fieldtested by the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Hood, Texas, allows soldiers to use alternate sources of power to operate equipment, thus minimizing battery consumption. Up to 20 users can use the TPA-20 at one time.