Description
Organization: NAVAIR
Team Name: Multi-Place Life Raft (MPLR) Team
Related Acquisition Topic(s): Commercial Practices, Cycle Time Reduction (CTR), Financial Management, Integrated Product Teams (IPT), Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD), Performance Specs and Standards
Description:
This Naval Aviation Systems Team will save the DOD at least $10M dollars in the next 20 years; significantly reduce a fleet maintenance burden (nearly 80,000 man-hours saved in the first 7 years); and increase downed aircrew water survivability. They are making new multi-place life rafts available to the fleet faster, better, and cheaper than ever before. After examining the Navy's current 1950s-vintage multi-place life rafts, this team became committed to modernizing the Navy and Marine Corps raft inventory while reducing associated life cycle cost. They pursued funding to support this endeavor ultimately seeking, competing for, and obtaining a combination of less traditional funds from Naval Air Systems Command's Aircraft Equipment Reliability and Maintainability Improvement (AERMIP) and Affordable Readiness Initiative (ARI) Programs. Engineers and logisticians worked together to compile a new performance specification that combined Navy and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) life raft requirements. A Commerce Business Daily announcement prompted dialogue with life raft manufacturers and their subsequent sample submissions. These life raft samples were submitted to an extensive battery of laboratory, operational, and environmental testing using organic Navy resources. Only one set of rafts passed all testing. This family of rafts (8-, 12-, and 20-person) is now slated for attrition-based fleet introduction under a General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule that makes them 37% cheaper than a direct Navy purchase. This same team of engineers and logisticians is also completing the rafts' logistics package for fleet introduction. The U.S. Air Force was invited and participated in later stages of raft testing and is now reviewing all test data prior to adopting the rafts for several of their aircraft.
Reduced Life Cycle Costs
Estimates indicate these new 8-, 12- and 20-person rafts will save an estimated $9,907,958 in the next 20 years with an attrition introduction rate of just 8-9% per year, depending on the raft. (These are Navy / Marine Corps estimates only. Air Force estimates will increase DOD cost savings further.) This estimate equates to a Return on Investment of 20.2 with an initial investment of just $491,000 over a three-year period (ending in FY-00). Savings are due both to reductions in scheduled maintenance and longer raft service life. Currently, fleet raft checks require a 6 hour inflation every 224 days—costly in terms of time, money, and reduced service life of 11-12 years per raft. The new rafts will arrive vacuum-packed and require just a single inflation check every 5 years conducted by the contractor under the GSA Schedule. Data collected in an AGE Exploration program will determine if the repack cycles can be extended to 7 years, and if the raft service life will exceed current projections of 20 years. (There are additional cost avoidances / savings not mentioned here.)
Acquisition System Improvements
Better—compared to current 1950s designs, the new rafts deploy far easier and offer a host of enhancing features that will contribute significantly to aircrew and passenger water survival. They have an improved inflation system, decreased inflation times, dual and improved boarding stations, self-erecting canopy, insulated floor, more space per person, a 50% overload capacity, and two water activated lights. Cheaper—by making the rafts available to the fleet through the GSA, the team avoided the Navy's standard supply system mark-up (38% in FY-99) as compared to the GSA's 1% mark-up. Faster—also under the GSA, the contractor has an economic incentive to ensure the rafts are available to the fleet in a timely manner, minimizing out-of-stock conditions and avoiding separate contracting processes and lead-times.
Integrating Commercial Practices
The Performance Specification allowed the team to concentrate on requirements without the need to dictate how those requirements should be met. The only contractor to survive the testing process was Air Cruisers of Belmar, NJ who modified a commercial raft to satisfy the Navy's performance requirements. Their rapid prototyping capability coupled with a willingness to work with the Navy team and incorporate test results greatly contributed to the success of the program. The GSA schedule allows the Navy to take advantage of Air Cruisers' 5 year warranty for the entire raft plus an additional 15 years for the vacuum packing bag and seal. Standard DOD warranties are limited to just one year. Unlike current rafts, the new ones do not require any Ozone Depleting Substances in either their manufacture or repair. They will be inspected, repaired, and repacked at FAA-certified contractor facilities on both coasts. Also as part of the team's CBD announcement, requesting the rafts be FAA certified saved even more expense by allowing both the acceptance of previous test results (as for qualified materials) and acceptance of an additional layer of standardized tests.
Promoting Acquisition Process Improvement
The team applied their Acquisition Reform training in a number of areas on this raft program. First, they developed a Performance Specification focused on fleet requirements. Second, government test results were discussed with the surviving contractor, Air Cruisers, who in turn continued to improve the raft at no cost to the Navy. Third, the team was able to gain valuable insights in to current raft technologies by using several types of CBD announcements including a Request for Information and a Request for Samples. Fourth, they used non-traditional funds from AERMIP and ARI programs as more traditional funds were locked into higher fleet priorities. The time to the fleet is actually less than two years--the fleet will start receiving the new rafts in third quarter FY-00. And as mentioned, the Navy's been sharing data and testing with the U.S. Air Force that may result in Air Force use of the new rafts as well. This should increase the contractor’s sales volume and reduce unit costs to the Navy. The team is also pursuing international interests.
