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Have you ever been faced with the following situations? Your senior leaders just received an impressive presentation from the ACME Logistics Corporation showing an entirely new way to improve logistics support, and you have been asked whether it is something the Air Force can use. Or maybe you believe a current logistics process is broken, but you have not been able to develop a solution that clearly can be shown to be an improvement. The application of professional scientific analysis provides the quantitative evidence needed by management to make these types of decisions. This is the business of the Management Sciences Division of the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC/XPS).
Although a part of the AFMC Directorate of Plans and Programs (AFMC/XP), we routinely perform studies and analyses for clients outside the directorate, particularly in the AFMC Logistics Directorate (AFMC/LG). The majority of our analysts have advanced degrees in technical areas, such as operations research, mathematics, engineering, and management sciences.
This article highlights work in 2002 to help the Air Force logistician make informed decisions. Following is a summary of three of our significant spares management studies and a list of other logistics management contributions. Details and points of contact for topics mentioned in this article are available in our 2002 annual report, which can be found at https://www.afmcmil.wpafb.af.mil/HQ-AFMC/XP/xps/xps_annrep.htm. Requests for a printed or an electronic copy should be sent to Samantha Hetrick (937-257-3887 or [email protected]).
COLT-Improving Spares Support to Depot Maintenance and to the Flight Line
Customer Oriented Leveling Technique (COLT) is a marginal analysis math model developed by XPS to set stock levels on Defense Logistics Agency (DLA)-managed parts at the AFMC repair depots (air logistics centers [ALC]). We worked with the AFMC Supply Division (AFMC/LGS) to implement COLT at the beginning of fiscal year (FY) 2002. It is directly responsible for executing AFMC's roughly $700M annual General Support Division (GSD) spares budget. It optimizes execution of funding to minimize the expected customer wait time to depot maintenance operations.
During calendar year 2002, we worked with the ALCs to fine tune COLT. We also tracked and reported the performance results throughout the year. Incredibly, with roughly the same amount of spares funding in previous years, COLT has achieved a 57-percent reduction in customer...