Improving Readiness with a Public-Private Partnership: NAVAIR's Auxiliary Power Unit Total Logistics Support Program
Abstract
The auxiliary power unit (APU) public-private partnership was originally conceived of as a commercial outsourcing initiative during a Navy acquisition conference in Arizona in early 1996. At the depot level, as well, staff knew that a reengineering of logistics support processes, to reflect a more performance-based approach, was needed to reduce the cost of managing and distributing reparable APUs and to increase system reliability. A further incentive pushing the Naval Aviation Depot, Cherry Point, North Carolina (NADEP-CP) towards embracing a more performance-based approach in partnership with the private sector came from the Defense Reform Initiative (DRI). In the DRI, Secretary of Defense William Cohen defined four major areas for applying reforms, including reengineering, consolidating, competing, and eliminating. Debra Bautista, Program Manager for the F/A-18 fighter Auxiliary Power Unit at NADEP-CP, and her staff believed that the DRI could be applied to the F/A-18 APU depot maintenance program, specifically in the form of a partnership between the government and private industry. The real impetus behind the partnership, however, came in January 1998, when, due to new legislation to introduce competition into depot maintenance, Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) met with Honeywell to discuss partnering with a public depot. The new legislation, section 2469 of U.S. Code Title 10, requires that a public-private competition be held before any depot-level workload is moved from the public sector to the private sector. The new requirements of Title 10, coupled with Bautista's belief that a public-private partnership would be the key to reducing F/A-18 APU costs while increasing reliability and availability, made NADEP-CP a prime candidate for being the first Naval Aviation Depot to implement a public-private partnership.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA494610
Entities
People
- Rene Rendon
- Stephanie Novello
- William Lucyshyn
Organizations
- University of Maryland