30 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department and Lockheed Martin reached a handshake agreement that will require the defense giant to invest about $70.6 million to fix an ongoing problem with F-35 spare parts, one that resulted in increased government labor costs, the department announced Sept. 29.
For the past few months, Lockheed and the Defense Contracts Management Agency have been locked in a dispute over more than 15,000 F-35 spare parts sent to the U.S. military with incorrect or incomplete “electronic equipment logs” or EELs, which allow the parts to be absorbed into the F-35′s logistics system and installed on the jet.
Lockheed and the Defense Contracts Management Agency expect a final agreement to be formalized sometime within the next two weeks or so, said DCMA spokesman Matthew Montgomery, who confirmed the $70.588 million deal to Defense News.
The use of EELs — which allow the government to track the usage and lifespan of major F-35 parts — is unique to the joint strike fighter program and is meant to help inform smarter, more cost-effective maintenance and buying practices.
But when parts are delivered with inaccurate EEL information, it can take hours for military maintainers and Lockheed support personnel to track down the correct data that will allow a part to be uploaded into the system and installed in the aircraft.
Instead of paying back the government directly for the added costs associated with the EELs, Lockheed will “compensate the government with Lockheed Martin investments” that will ultimately ensure spare parts are delivered with accurate electronic logs, said Lockheed spokesman Brett Ashworth.
“We appreciate the partnership with the Defense Contract Management Agency and the F-35 Joint Program Office, and we remain focused on ensuring the warfighter has the support they need to employ the F-35′s game changing capabilities,” he said.
The final sum of the agreement is less than half of the $183 million sum that DCMA initially projected that the government had spent to correct wrong or incorrect EELs since 2015. It was not immediately clear why DCMA had agreed to a compensation deal worth so much less than the department's estimated costs.
During a July hearing, lawmakers from the House Oversight and Reform Committee chastised Lockheed for its failure to deliver parts ready to fly.
“That's $183 million that the American taxpayers were forced to pay because Lockheed Martin failed to meet the requirements of its contract,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee's chairwoman.
But Greg Ulmer, Lockheed's vice president for the F-35 program, said then that the company should not take all of the blame for the spare parts problems.
“It's not all associated with Lockheed Martin performance. There are many aspects associated with [parts that are] not ready for issue,” he said.
22 mars 2021 | International, Aérospatial
Capital pour la coopération européenne en matière de défense, le projet de Système de combat aérien futur (SCAF) est fragilisé, alors que les parties prenantes (pays participants et géants de la défense)
24 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR
Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — The microelectronics industry is at an “inflection point, and the U.S. government must implement policies to entice companies to do more manufacturing within American shores, the Defense Department's chief weapons buyer said Thursday. Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said on a webinar that her office is taking a look at how to entice companies to bring microelectronic production and testing work back to the United States, where the Defense Department can more easily verify the security and reliability of the hardware. Microelectronics are the cornerstone to advancing emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing and 5G wireless networks, as well as critical components of weapons systems. But the Pentagon is concerned that the current market — where the majority of production and testing takes place outside the United States — allows for adversaries such as China to introduce backdoors that will harm U.S. national security. “We can no longer identify the pedigree of our microelectronics,” Lord said at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Electronics Resurgence Initiative summit. “Therefore we can no longer ensure that backdoors, malicious code or data exfiltration commands aren't embedded in our code. While we develop the ability to identify the technical path to ensure all components, circuits and systems are clean regardless of their manufacturing location, we need to find a path to domestic sources to provide a secure and resilient supply of legacy, state-of-the-present and state-of-the-art microelectronics.” The United States is one of three countries with advanced microelectronics manufacturing capabilities. Increasingly, American microelectronics manufacturers have moved microchip fabrication plants abroad, according to a 2016 report from the Congressional Research Service. To pull the microelectronics manufacturing back within U.S. shores, Lord proposed creating public-private partnerships. “The U.S. government can provide a demand signal and can also infuse some capital to overcome some of the activation energy, if you will, to get the whole process rolling — of manufacturing, packaging, testing here in the states,” Lord said. “And then we partner with other industrial sectors to sustain that.” Lord listed several reasons why companies had gone abroad, such as environmental regulations, local and state taxes, and economic pressures such as a wages. https://www.c4isrnet.com/newsletters/daily-brief/2020/08/20/pentagons-acquisition-chief-wants-microelectronics-production-to-return-to-the-us/
30 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Safran Helicopter Engines a signé un contrat de 10 ans avec la Force aérienne portugaise (Força Aérea Portuguesa) pour réaliser la maintenance des moteurs RTM322 de ses hélicoptères EH101 Merlin. Un total de 38 moteurs va bénéficier du contrat de soutien Global Support Package (GSP) de Safran. Cet accord répond aux souhaits de la Force aérienne portugaise garantissant ainsi une disponibilité optimale de ses moteurs, durant ses opérations sur le territoire national et à l'étranger. « Nous misons beaucoup sur ce contrat qui va garantir la disponibilité de nos moteurs durant nos opérations » a déclaré le général de corps d'armée Cartaxo Alves, de la Force aérienne portugaise. Avec le contrat GSP, les opérateurs sont assurés de disposer de moteurs opérationnels quand ils en ont besoin, tout en ayant des garanties en matière de budget prévisionnel, de coûts fixes à l'heure de vol et de partenariat technique avec le constructeur. GSP fait partie de la gamme EngineLife Services, les offres de services de Safran pour les moteurs d'hélicoptères. https://www.air-cosmos.com/article/safran-signe-un-contrat-de-maintenance-pour-les-moteurs-des-hlicoptres-eh101-merlin-portugais-22485