Discussions with in-country contractors and the partner country maintainers indicated a lack of confdence in the technicians’ ability to utilize the test station. Frequent movement of personnel, when technicians tended to be reassigned elsewhere by the time they gained profciency in using the station, stalled its use.
contractor, it was agreed that the program would purchase a chassis with circuit cards installed and ship them to the prime contractor, who would then remove and dispose of the circuit cards. Once depopulated, the spare chassis was sent to the part- ner nation. The culmination of the efficient strategy that I, along with the contractor, arranged was that the partner nation avoided a costly technical refresh for the near future. Procurement of repair parts for aging systems can prove challenging. In another case, a critical multilayer circuit card assembly was out of pro- duction, with an inadequate quantity available for future repairs. Attempts through the prime contractor to pro- cure the boards and reconfgure the circuit were unsuccessful. Manufac- turing the cards had become impos- sible due to a lack of components. By working through previous pro- curement documents, I located the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for the board and determined that only one needed processor could not be procured. During further dis- cussions with the OEM, it became clear that they were willing to pri- oritize procurement of the needed processor due to the importance of the circuit board in maintaining the partner nation’s system. So, the OEM reviewed the existing specifcations and proposed a new processor with a higher processing speed. While higher speeds are typically benefi- cial, in this system’s case, that was not necessarily true. By bringing to- gether government, OEM engineers,
and the prime contractor engineers, we determined that it was possible, albeit with a slight risk, to manufac- ture additional circuit boards with a higher speed processor. That being said, the other com- ponents were limited, and the OEM was concerned that the supply might diminish rapidly. To ensure that the OEM could procure the compo- nents, my contracting team directed the prime contractor to procure the limited components prior to sub- mission of proposal and subsequent contract award. While the procure- ment is still ongoing, the new circuit boards should be able to function as designed, thereby saving a $1.2 billion radar from risk of failure. Working with FMS partner nations and interfacing with contractors have provided me with a range of new chal- lenges and opportunities to cultivate and use strategic thinking and prob- lem-solving skills in new ways. Each partner nation and obstacle differs from every other; consideration is needed of cultural diferences, and challenges in coordinating communi- cations can arise between the partner nation, U.S. Government personnel, and contractors. By communicating with stakehold- ers and facilitating the movement of an unutilized test station, the program management team and I assisted the FMS partner nation in doubling its depot-level repair capability. Ob- solescence weighs heavily on many aging systems, and solutions may not be easily found. My background in re- search, procurement, and strategic
thinking resulted in both cost savings and maintainability of the system and long-term system operability. I am confdent that with persever- ance and teamwork, solutions can al- most always be found with benefts to both the U.S. Government and our partner nations. FARAH recently transitioned to a career as an Air Force civilian after working in higher education for more than 20 years. She is currently a logistics management special- ist in the Air Force Materiel Command. She holds an M.S.E. and a Ph.D. from the Univer- sity of Massachusetts, has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles, and has presented her research both nationally and internationally. The author can be contacted at: kimberly.farah@us.af.mil . The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the Department of Defense. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.
DAU Resources • International Acquisition – Foreign Military Sales (FMS) • International Acquisition Management (Community of Practice) • CLB 036 Foreign Military Sales (Course) • Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Systems Acquisition Job Support Tool (JST)
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