Phase I Submission Name of Program: Project Liberty

Transcription

1 Phase I Submission Name of Program: Project Liberty Name of Program Leader: Michael McCombs and Chris Byrd Phone Number: and michael.mccombs@l-3com.com and christopher.a.byrd@l-3com.com Postage Address: L-3 Mission Integration, Jack Finney Blvd, Greenville, TX Name of Customer Representative: Mark Bailey Phone Number: mark.bailey.14@us.af.mil Category in which you are competing (choose one of the following): Sub-System R&D/SDD Sub-System Production Sub-System Sustainment System R&D/SDD System Production System Sustainment Special Projects 2015 AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 1

2 Bio for program leaders: Michael R. McCombs Program Manager Project Liberty CLS L-3 Mission Integration Michael R. McCombs is the Project Liberty Contractor Logistic Support (CLS) Program Manager, (PM) and is assigned to L-3 Mission Integration (MI) in Greenville, Texas. Michael has been a member of the L-3 Aerospace Systems group for four years, most recently he has joined the L-3 MI team bringing with him 15 years of experience in the aviation industry. In his previous role as the Sr. PM for Army Intelligence Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) with L-3 Vertex, Michael managed multiple CLS programs in support of both the U.S. Army and other special project programs. Prior to his time with L-3, Michael held leadership roles within other ISR industrial leading companies. Michael also served more the 12 years with the U.S. military with multiple deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War on Terrorism. Michael earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Professional Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle with a special interest in aviation safety. He went on to earn a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Texas at Dallas Executive MBA program. Christopher A. Byrd Project Engineer Project Liberty CLS L-3 Mission Integration Christopher A. Byrd is the Project Liberty CLS Project Engineer (PE), and is assigned to L-3 MI in Greenville, Texas. Chris joined the L-3 MI team in 2004 after a decade in the telecommunications industry. While in telecommunications, Chris participated in the design, implementation and optimization of Global System for Mobility (GSM) for operators in several Major Trading Areas (MTA s) in North America and Caribbean/Latin America. He was part of the team that commissioned the very first operational GSM system in the United States in the Washington/Baltimore MTA. Since joining L-3, Chris has served as the project engineer for a multitude of aircraft programs, including foreign military sales programs for the German Air Force and Republic of Korea Air Force, communication systems PE for a VIP/special air mission program, and the PE for small ISR platforms supporting Air Force programs. Chris earned his Bachelor s of Science in Electrical Engineering from Florida State University in 1993 where he focused on digital communication systems. He has also been awarded the L-3 Top- Star Award for Teamwork for six consecutive years in a row AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 2

3 Phase I Program Narrative - 1 System Sustainment Award Candidate: Project Liberty Project Liberty (PL) aircraft (designated MC-12W) began service in June of 2009 and quickly became a major asset to support our Nation s counterterrorism/irregular warfare missions. The MC-12W aircraft is a medium-altitude manned platform based on the twinturboprop Beechcraft King Air (KA) 350 and 350ER (extended range) models that were designed with ISR capabilities to collect and provide real time intelligence information critical to the success of ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first aircraft was deployed in less than 8 months after contract award and flew its first mission within two days of arrival in Iraq earning the program the reputation as the fastest weapon system delivered from concept to combat since the P-51 Mustang in World War II. The initial fleet of aircraft (total of 37) completed delivery within 23 months of contract award. Five additional aircraft were later added to the MC-12 fleet which brought the total to 42 combat-ready platforms for our warfighters. Each aircraft system includes line-of-sight and satellite communications datalinks, a robust voice communications suite and an EO/IR sensor with laser designator capabilities. The aircraft operate with a crew of four comprised of two pilots and two sensor operators. The sensor operators provide real-time, critical tactical level ISR information to ground troops and operational level intelligence information to operational centers in support of current and future combat missions. The KA 350 aircraft is capable of flying missions six hours in duration, and the ER version is capable of flying over seven hour missions. The PL sustainment effort included ground equipment, logistics support, and trained maintainers at locations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as training sites in the US. Each of the OCONUS sites were initiated in less than 30 days, and each conducted combat missions within the first 48 hours of aircraft arrival. At this time, one OCONUS site is operational supporting combat missions and there is one CONUS location to support training requirements. The fleet accomplishments include over 389,000 combat hours flown to date, and according to the Air Force: the MC-12W Liberty aided in the kill or capture of more than 8,000 terrorists and discovered more than 650 weapons caches. In addition, they have helped divert convoys around improvised explosive devices, provided over watch for large numbers of coalition forces and saved coalition lives. The Team. From the start of the program, the Air Force s 645 Aeronautical Systems Group has led the PL team on behalf of the warfighter with L-3 Mission Integration (MI) leading the industry team. Our industry team includes over 340 subcontractors located in 38 states. To support the fleet, L-3 maintains an inventory of over 8,000 part numbers with over 1,300,000 KA specific/mission system parts. Communication is maintained with bi-weekly telecoms with Wright-Patterson and our resident 645 th Aeronautical Systems Squadron customer. Daily meetings at the operation sites ensure mission requirements are met. Weekly telecoms are held with the aircraft OEM to address Repair Design Office (RDO) actions. L-3 s C 3 ISR group provides turnkey support for field and heavy maintenance support to the PL KA 350 fleet. The work is accomplished in accordance with FAA/FAR 14 CFR Part 43 Maintenance, preventative maintenance, rebuilding and alteration affording the fleet the ability to fly anywhere in the world. Field service representatives provide trouble-shooting, maintenance, repair, removal and replacement of Prime Mission Equipment (PME). Our Quality Management System is approved to the requirements 2015 AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 3

4 Phase I Program Narrative - 2 of AS 9100:2009 ISO 9001:2008 (Certificate Number 1112) through National Quality Assurance, USA. This approval is applicable to design, development, manufacture, and installation of special airborne and ground-based systems, sub-systems, aircraft maintenance, overhaul and modifications, airborne and ground-based testing, associated research and development projects including logistics, technical services and systems integration. Our highly skilled workforce is made up of a multitude of backgrounds, disciplines and job categories. Their training is tracked and maintained to ensure currency and aids in planning future development. Employees use our online L-3 University training program to access their training transcripts and required training. Each employee has an individual development plan (IDP) that is based on the employee s job title and may be modified by their manager as needed to meet their specific job assignments. Strengths of a Mature Program Team Organization. With a proven process, the PL team has continuously met the support challenges of the warfighter. A good example of this is when the Baseline 3.0 aircraft were deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 to operate alongside the Baseline 2.0 aircraft while meeting increased mission flight demands. In 2013, Baseline 3.1 aircraft were deployed while Baseline 2.0 and 3.0 were still operating. These upgraded aircraft created a challenge for the PL team because they had to successfully support multiple configurations that had unique documentation packages, new training requirements for maintainers, and increased parts inventories. In order to conduct the modification upgrades, the Liberty aircraft had to be ferried from Afghanistan to Beale Air Force Base, and then onto L-3 MID in Greenville, Texas where the modification depot facility is located. Following the upgrade, the aircraft were redeployed to the Area Of Responsibility to continue combat operations. The key point of this effort is the following: at no time was there any reduction of PL aircraft in theater to support operations. A detailed schedule and iron flow matrix was established to ensure the flow of aircraft met the demands of the warfighter. We ensured a one to one cross flow of aircraft to and from theater to keep the aircraft numbers constant in order to provide a 2.0 Utilization Rate (UTE) for the theater commander. The challenge of maintaining a Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) based mission system over time is due to industry changes. The availability of existing COTS items is based on product demand, technology migration and manufacturing technique changes. This makes obsolescence management a critical part of our sustainment plan. Our obsolescence management system utilizes information from the Government Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP), our engineering and procurement organizations, and from direct notices from suppliers. Identified parts are researched to determine the impact on operations, capabilities, security and Information Assurance (IA) impact. Categories of obsolescence parts are: end of life, end of support/repair, superseded parts and diminishing vendor/vanishing vendor. The PL Obsolescence Team provides the analysis and recommendation to the Compliance Engineering Group for validation. Potential dispositions are lifetime buys, suitable substitute availability or redesign to ensure capabilities are maintained. The PL team also supports hardware, software, FAA and OEM service bulletins. These service bulletins support the fielding of new capabilities, product improvements, periodic updates, security enhancements, and instructions for continued airworthiness AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 4

5 Phase I Program Narrative - 3 Hardware and software service bulletins are developed and validated in a PL sustainment depot System Integration Laboratory (SIL). The SIL duplicates the aircraft configuration so that hardware and software changes can be evaluated in a ground simulated environment. This provides early system testing and anomaly resolution of software versions, system builds and Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) verification. Documentation management plays a vital role in the sustainment of the PL fleet. In addition to the creating and storing service bulletin documentation, there are numerous other documentation requirements that the team maintains. These include aircraft manuals, supplements, equipment manuals, shipping/receiving documents, flight publications, maintenance and configuration databases, documentation subscriptions, and aircraft transfer, checklist and cyclic updates. All of this documentation is maintained within the PL Library and made available to the Air Force and L-3 teams at Greenville and the field sites. Managing Complexity. Maintaining and operating the PL aircraft fleet in Afghanistan is a complex operation with many challenges. But occasionally there are situations that are deemed out of the ordinary that present significant challenges. Such was the case in 2013, when a severe thunderstorm and hail storm hit the overseas base causing severe damage to several PL aircraft. Seven aircraft were grounded as a result of this severe storm and required major component replacement. Six aircraft required wings and flight controls to be replaced, and three aircraft required the vertical and horizontal stabilizers to be replaced. The average repair time per aircraft was 54 days. Over 1,500 dents required hand forming to repair and 76 RDO authorized repair packages were required to complete repairs on damaged areas. All seven aircraft were returned to service within 90 days. This effort required a tremendous amount of engineering, supplier, logistics and maintainer support to get the aircraft back to service in this short amount of time. With the uncertainty of OCONUS flight operations in Afghanistan in 2014, the PL team strategically devised a plan to incrementally relocate 276K pounds of cargo to a staging location in the Dallas Fort Worth area. The efficiency and flexibility of the team resulted in zero operational impact to our warfighters and to the execution of their demanding missions. The site was successfully shutdown and all material and personnel were offsite just 10 days after flight operations ended. Also in 2014, the team was given the monumental task to prepare 8 aircraft for transfer from the USAF to the Army. This endeavor included performing 69 different modifications in a short time period. These modification required over 120 engineering drawings, 500 work orders, preparing and inventorying over 420 items of loose equipment, imaging 100+ SW hard drives, installation of a new SW version, revising/reproducing over 300 technical lists/publications and were originally estimated to take over 50 scheduled man-days to perform. The effort also included the first-ever fielding of the situational awareness (SA) monitor modification. The SA monitor modification was originally estimated to take 8 days because it included extensive structural, wiring and tooling requirements. Determined to streamline this effort, the team worked around-the-clock and completed the first modification in only 6 days, a full 2 days ahead of schedule. Increased proficiency allowed the team to cut this time even further to an incredible 3 days AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 5

6 Phase I Program Narrative - 4 The team truly demonstrated determination and dedication in performing the modifications on these 8 aircraft, thus ensuring our combat troops have the best possible support. They came together and tackled this tasking with pride and professionalism, not only meeting all expectations but beating the established timeline by 16 days, without compromising safety or quality. This in turn saved numerous man-hours and minimized downtime to ensure all aircraft were ready to transfer to the Army in a seamless transition. Their efforts were recognized by the Army receiving units, the Beale Air Force units, our local Greenville Squadron and the Wright- Patterson program office. Measured Effectiveness. Daily flight records are maintained to record hours by aircraft to document operational time and are used to calculate Mean-Time-Between Failure (MTBF). The PL failure analysis database provides the ability to develop a real world MTBF on each Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) and identify failure trends. Real world MTBF allows for Lifetime Buy (LTB) recommendations for obsolescence and spare recommendations. The measured effectiveness of the program is demonstrated in the number of sorties, hours flown, and mission capability and availability rates. Operational Availability average of 98.8% for over 5 years. To date, PL aircraft have completed over 94,000 sorties at CONUS and OCONUS locations with over 59,000 sorties flown from 2012 through Over 78,000 were combat sorties with the remainder being training flights. Flights averaged 4.4 hours with the maximum endurance sortie at 7.8 hours. The fleet has maintained an average sortie utilization rate of 39.84, an average mission capability rate of 95.83% and an average mission availability rate of 98.8% at all locations. In 2012, the fleet averaged flying 2,879 hours per aircraft, and each aircraft averaged flying 614 sorties. In 2013, the average flying time per aircraft was 2,899 hours and sorties averaged 637 per aircraft. In 2014, the fleet of PL aircraft was reduced but mission requirements remained steady. The average time flown increased to 3,177 hours per aircraft, and sorties per aircraft increased to 735. Of equal note, the fleet only encountered 27 maintenance cancels in 2012, 28 maintenance cancels in 2013 and 13 maintenance cancels in These performance achievements support the Air Force s claim that The MC-12W Liberty aircraft is the ISR aircraft of the USAF. Creating Value for the Warfighter. As a multirole ISR asset, the role of the PL aircraft is to provide detailed, tactical and operational level information to our Nation s warfighters. This is done through a variety of sensors on board the aircraft ranging from Full Motion Video to data collection and dissemination. This information has saved hundreds of American and Coalition forces lives and has allowed our warfighters to either capture or kill insurgents on the battlefield. With a combined mission availability rate of 99.8% at OCONUS and CONUS locations, the PL fleet has proven reliability that creates value for the warfighter. The PL team has continually added value for the Air Force by stellar execution since the program s inception AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 6