One area in which it might be easier for fleet managers to accommodate change is maintenance. For instance, instead of doing major maintenance involving a lot of rework every eight years on a particular aircraft, a process that could take that aircraft out of the fleet for a year, it might make more sense to update certain systems on that aircraft every two years. Such changes could reduce the total investment of time and money over the life of an aircraft and keep the aircraft in service longer. Also, the realization that the military would be maintaining aircraft longer, and buying fewer new planes, put additional pressure on military managers to reduce operating and maintenance support costs. Such contracting will make the most of the private sector s strengths.
Industry can more rapidly make changes.
They can reengineer something faster, exploit other technologies better than we can. That s what we want them to bring to the table, Milan says. It may ultimately take more than creative contracting to bring down total ownership costs, though. Congress has restricted the amount of maintenance that can be performed outside military depots, and Defense officials increasingly see outsourcing work to private contractors as the most efficient way to keep down costs.