Description
Organization: NAVSUP, NAVICP
Team Name: Attitude Heading and Reference System IPT
Related Acquisition Topic(s): Commercial and Non Developmental Items (CANDI), Cycle Time Reduction (CTR), Direct Vendor Delivery (DVD), Integrated Product Teams (IPT), Logistics Engineering Change Proposal, Performance Specs and Standards
Description:
The Attitude Heading and Reference System (AHRS) Integrated Product Team awarded a competitive Best Value procurement which will directly save taxpayers 48 million dollars over fifteen years and improve H-46 AHRS reliability to a level nearly 25 times greater than currently achieved.
The AHRS team embraced acquisition reform through its implementation of a team-designed Logistics Engineering Change Proposal (LECP) structured to replace the old, unreliable, expensive-to-maintain A/A24G-39 system with a lower cost system incorporating the latest technological advances developed by industry. Subsequently, the funding for this acquisition was provided through NAVICP's LECP program.
The team reduced acquisition costs and accelerated cycle time by formulating a competitive solicitation which established performance-based specifications and Best Value criteria to ensure industry would offer commercial non-developmental items that had proven records of high performance and reliability. The benefits of the increased reliability will be realized through lower fleet operation costs and improved readiness. This also facilitated the delivery schedule of the system, with a test unit being delivered four months after award and the actual fielding of the system only 11 months after award. The team maximized competitive leverage by incorporating a number of DVD contract clauses designed to ensure the highest levels of fleet support and savings/cost avoidance throughout the replacement system's life cycle. Among the innovative DVD features that will ensure optimal "cradle to grave" support and hold this contract up as a prototype life cycle DVD procurement for future replacement systems are the following:
Complete Commercial Responsibility for Wholesale Inventory . The Navy will NOT buy or hold any wholesale inventory. The contractor will have complete responsibility to decide what levels of wholesale inventory it needs to hold in order to meet the DVD requirement for 48 hour shipments. Life Cycle Warranty . The contract has a 15 year life cycle warranty requiring the contractor to replace or repair all failures during this period at no additional charge to the Government. Reliability Improvement Guarantee . The contractor has guaranteed reliability improvement to 7,500 hours Mean-Time-Between-Failure (MTBF) vs. the 321 hours MTBF experienced by the current system. In addition to the increased MTBF, the AHRS replacement system eliminated the requirement for each H-46 aircraft to semiannually complete a compass swing procedure. This previously had required each aircraft to be grounded a total of four days a year to complete this maintenance action. Reimbursable Spares Clause . This is the crucial element that ensures the Navy will always maintain just-in-time (JIT) RETAIL inventory levels for the fleet. This clause requires the contractor to provide additional retail spares at NO COST to the Navy if the guaranteed reliability level is not met. NAVICP's Weapons Managers (03) developed a mathematical formula tying in MTBF to retail spares level.
