AMC receives four value engineering awards

By staff reportJune 20, 2013

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics recently announced that the U.S. Army Materiel Command is the recipient of four Department of Defense Value Engineering awards.

The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) received an organizational award, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Command (AMRDEC) received a team award, the U.S. Army Armament Research Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) received a special category award, and a Tank and Automotive Command (TACOM) contractor, Oshkosh Corporation, received a contractor award.

Value Engineering is a technique to improve the value of products, designs, and systems, by using a functional analysis methodology. It increases product value and reduces the life cycle cost of weapons systems.

The Army Acquisition and Materiel community received 8 of the total 32 DOD value engineering awards, in recognition of the Army Value Engineering program efforts which garnered $1.2 billion in cost savings and cost avoidance.

AMCOM achieved $142 million in savings and cost avoidance.

"Improvements made to the PATRIOT radar cooling pump this past fiscal year extended its service life by six times and resulted in $16 million in cost savings," said Tom Reynolds, command value engineering and life cycle cost reduction manager at AMCOM.

AMRDEC's Corpus Christi Aviation Parts Recovery Team completed 78 value engineering projects and achieved more than $93 million in savings and cost avoidance.

"The team's efforts to identify potential repair candidates and develop new repair concepts saves critical operational and support resources for the Army," Reynolds continued.

ARDEC generated more than $49 million in savings and cost avoidance.

"The ARDEC team's value engineering program management efforts and exemplary program leadership resulted in dramatic positive impacts to system reliability and support efforts," said Stephen Tutt, director of Continuous Process Improvement Office at the Joint Munitions and Lethality Command.

TACOM's contractor, the Oshkosh Corporation, generated more than $10 million in savings and cost avoidance in medium tactical vehicles Army wide.