REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. — Aviation parts will become obsolete, that cannot be prevented.
What can be prevented, however, are impacts to weapons systems by proactively managing obsolescence. One team at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center has made that their mission for the Navy F-18 jet. Because of that dedication, lead engineer, Alissa “Rese” Meikus, was awarded the Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages Achievement Award at the Parts and Materials Management Conference, held in Savannah, Georgia, this month.
For this team, the key to overcoming a looming obsolescence is to be ahead of the game.
“The whole point of what we do is to find items that are obsolete within the system and provide some kind of mitigation before it gets to a production line or a sustainment impact,” Meikus said. “Without proactive obsolescence, a part is needed for production or repair and they can't fill it. Which means that if they find out that late, they will have a significant cost to prevent shutting down or gapping the production line — or start having back orders and grounded aircraft in sustainment. What we do is manage it proactively, so we find those issues and mitigate them prior to them being a problem.”
This type of engineering can feel like detective work, Meikus said.
“With the F-18, until four or five years ago, they depended solely on the industry partner to do it and they weren't proactive with it,” Meikus said. “Our team was brought on board to transition from a reactive obsolescence production program to a proactive obsolescence sustainment program over the next five or 10 years. And that's where I came in to start building the obsolescence program from scratch.”
It was a unique project, Meikus said, to start an obsolescence program from square one.
“There was nothing, we had no data, we had nothing,” she said. “So, what do we do to build this program that's getting ready for sustainment and we have no contracts?”
AvMC’s Systems Readiness Directorate leadership knew that Meikus was up to the challenge.
“Rese is a valuable member of the AvMC Obsolescence Engineering team, said Dr. Amy Lawrence, chief, Manufacturing Science and Technology Division. “She is respected by her peers and is widely recognized as a subject matter expert. She continues to provide support to aviation platforms and mentor her co-workers, while supporting her Navy customer. She is helping to ensure the affordability and availability of our Army weapon systems.”
What is interesting is that Meikus is a chemical engineer by trade. How did she find herself working at SRD? Like so many engineers before her, Meikus was looking for a new challenge after working in a paper mill and later, a nuclear power plant.
“It's a lot of problem solving. That's the part I like the most is when something comes up, it’s ‘how in the world are we going to solve this so there's no impact?’” Meikus said. “Some programs are very robust, very proactive and the steps you take to solve the problem are pretty simple.”
Nothing about the F-18 project has been simple, however, which is why it has been gratifying for the AvMC team to be recognized for their work by their Navy customer. These types of partnerships across military branches are beneficial to everyone, Meikus said.
“There’s a lot of commonalities,” she shared. “There's a lot of duplication of effort across the board. As we expand into the Navy programs, we're able to reduce some of that duplication because of the AvMC owned obsolescence database, which is a huge factor in how efficient we're able to do the job.
“Getting these programs under a unified, proactive effort will save the Department of Defense millions of dollars.”
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The DEVCOM Aviation & Missile Center, headquartered at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the Army’s research and development focal point for advanced technology in aviation and missile systems. It is part of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM), a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Futures Command. AvMC is responsible for delivering collaborative and innovative aviation and missile capabilities for responsive and cost-effective research, development and life cycle engineering solutions, as required by the Army’s strategic priorities and support to its Cross-Functional Teams.
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