ANAD, GDLS nominated for Contractor-Military Collaboration of the Year

By U.S. ArmyJanuary 14, 2008

Anniston Army Depot, Ala., has partnered with defense contractor General Dynamics Land Systems for over a decade and the relationship has paid off for many, namely the warfighters who end up using the equipment that comes off the partners' production lines.

Combat vehicles and equipment manufactured and repaired over the years by the partnering team include the M1A1 and M1A2 tanks, the FOX vehicle, the Gunner's Primary Sight and the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle, or MRAP.

And we can't forget the eight-wheeled Stryker vehicle. GDLS manufactures it new at the depot and partners with ANAD to repair the Strykers coming back from war.

But it's the Stryker's reset efforts here that put the partners on the list of finalists for the Contractor-Military Collaboration of the Year Award presented at the Defense Logistics 2007 Conference Nov. 27 in Washington, D.C.

The Program Management Office, Naval Inventory Control Point & The Boeing Company won the award for their work on the F/A-18 Integrated Readiness Support Teaming Performance Based Logistics contract.

The Stryker reset program here returns vehicle variants back to combat units as quickly as possible.

"The Stryker vehicles were less than half fielded at the beginning of this program and it was critical to keep as many as possible in the combat area," said the depot's Stryker reset program manager Billie Hooper.

With two Stryker reset operations-one overseas in Qatar and one at the depot, the more seriously damaged vehicles requiring extensive welding are repaired at ANAD. General Dynamics provides the technical assistance while depot employees conduct the welding.

Every vehicle in the reset program requires repairs unique to the damage it received in battle. So, one of the challenges of Stryker reset work is the flexibility and ingenuity of the welders to only disassemble the vehicle to the point that would allow welding repairs to be accomplished without taking parts away that would take more time than needed to reassemble the vehicle.

This reset program competes with both new Stryker production and with the parts going to Southwest Asia.

"GDLS has made great strides in having parts on hand to complete the vehicles without any line stoppage," said Hooper.

Many of the combat and battle-damaged Strykers arriving in Anniston appear ready for the bone yard, said Hooper, but when they leave the depot they're "as structurally sound and operational as a Stryker coming off the new production line."

Public-private partnering is not new to the Stryker reset team, but this program between ANAD and GDLS is different from the other projects they've worked together because key players from both organizations participate in process improvement events typically reserved for depot workers.