Over the past several years the Army has made many changes as we continue down the road to transformation. Sustainment has been, and will always be, a critical part of our operations. Success will be defined by how we as leaders identify the parts/components required for sustaining the fleet during the conduct of both peacetime and hostile operations. Operational readiness reporting is one way to achieve success, but it is demand history that informs the logistical community of the true requirement.

    Army aviators have known about safety since their flight school days, but they may not know enough about maintenance and logistics. As careers progress and aviators become specialized, the aviation maintenance officer, better known as the "maintainer," becomes a critical asset. All aviators eventually learn that we can't perform maintenance on aircraft unless there is an established logistical foundation.

    Maintaining our aircraft fleet ensures that we can fly safely to accomplish our assigned mission.  The operational tempo (OPTEMPO) flown on aircraft affects not only "scheduled" maintenance, but also the frequency of "unscheduled" repairs.  The more the aircraft are flown, the more maintenance must be performed, and the time between scheduled maintenance approaches faster with every launch.

    Conducting maintenance properly is crucial to ensuring aircraft are always ready to perform assigned missions. As aviators, we cannot perform the necessary maintenance without first understanding and having a basic knowledge of logistics. For example, parts must be readily available in four different logistics bases: the bench stock; the shop stock; the prescribed load list (PLL); and a supporting activity that stores the authorized stockage list (ASL). The aircraft's support chain includes parts and maintenance.

    We determine how many and what parts to continually stock once we initially establish records and track them based on "demand history."  Records on previous requests for issue and repair determine what parts are required and are also part of the "demand history." Records identify how often those demands were made, and how many parts were issued and repaired within a controlled period.  

    Demand history provides the foundation on which to establish stocks and parts lists. If demand history is unavailable, using any combination of the following methods creates initial levels and lists of stock:

    a. Comparison. Initial stock compared to demand data obtained from a similar activity supporting like customer units or missions.

    b. Computation.  An initial stock level may be created by using equipment-density lists and technical manuals, or using authorization documents and the supported troop density list.

    c.  Field experience, combined with the vendor's knowledge and manufacturing studies and simulation data, or a request to the Army Materiel Command, results in a recommended initial stock level.

     Units that use demand history to determine the required parts needed to maintain assigned aircraft are usually more successful in keeping aircraft downtime to a minimum.  The maintainer identifies those parts as in "demand" and stores them at sufficient stock levels, resulting in an increase in the operational readiness (OR) rate. The OR rate demonstrates a unit's ability to successfully perform its mission. Many creative ways have been devised over the years to manipulate and report OR when, in fact, the organization's OR does not reflect an accurate snapshot of its overall readiness.

When an aircraft is not mission-capable because a part is unavailable from supply, maintainers know many ways to report that aircraft available.

    For example, an aircraft requires a transmission before it can be assessed as "mission-capable," but the supply system cannot deliver a transmission for months. Reporting the lack of transmissions on the unit readiness report will cause it to be intensely scrutinized at the item-manager level and higher.

    To circumvent the status of this aircraft as non-mission capable, however, the maintainer looks to a battlefield technique now described as "controlled exchange" -  removing needed parts from other dead-lined equipment. The more creative and experienced maintainers will exchange components from an aircraft that is technically "available" and in its scheduled "phase" maintenance. This method of rotation and pulling components while in phase maintenance can continue indefinitely. 

    The use of controlled exchanges conceals many problems within the supply chain. It will increase flight-hour costs, due to the increased workload of removing functioning components, purchasing new parts, installing the parts, risking damage to the part and/or aircraft. All these factors result in adding time to the repair.  

    Realistically, this is not the way to deal with the problem. If the part you need is not on the shelf, do something about it. Ask yourself and the stock clerk why it isn't there? Ensure your PLL stock is sufficient. High-priority requests or aircraft-on-the-ground requests will become rare, and replenishment actions will become the norm.  Newly demanded items, and items awaiting manufacture or vendor support in the supply system, should be the only exception.

    If a line in your PLL or shop stock is at zero balance, you should modify the replenishment request to an upgraded priority. Exaggerating your priority results in overtaxing the system and nullifying its original intent.

    Check for rejected orders if the part does not come in.  Find out why it was rejected and take corrective action to continue the process. Quite often, organizations fail to check on a rejected item status when it simply means the maintainer or clerk is redirected to another part number, source of supply, or a local purchase. The maintainer can research the requested item on the FEDLOG, follow the instructions for acquiring the part by looking up the acquisition advise code (AAC), and continue the process.  Reordering an item before taking corrective action results in the order-request system becoming bogged down with unnecessary duplicate orders and hanging up the order in an endless rejection cycle.