The Air Force recognized that reductions in spare parts inventories since the early 1990s have negatively affected aircraft readiness indicators such as mission capable rates, not-mission-capable supply, not-mission- capable maintenance, and cannibalizations. Recognizing the need to reverse this trend and that previous attempts to pinpoint specific spare parts shortages were piecemeal, temporary, and lacked adequate personnel to implement, the Air Force began a 5 to7 year logistics transformation effort in 1999 aimed at improving the efficiency and economy of the entire logistics process to enhance support to the warfighter. Rather than focusing on fully eliminating specific spare parts shortages, the Air Force chose to focus on addressing the process disconnects that caused the shortages. This included an end-to-end look at all aspects of the logistics process including commercial supply chain management, supply, maintenance, transportation, logistics planning, and financial management. The Spares Campaign initiated in February 2001 and the Depot Maintenance Reengineering and Transformation (DMRT) effort started in July 2001 were two key parts of the end-to-end review. In total, they identified the need for 84 initiatives, 43 of which related to spare parts. The Spares Campaign focused on supply process deficiencies, and it was intended to improve parts supportability to weapon systems and reverse declining readiness related to spares management. This was considered a major transformation effort and included five teams that reviewed the processes needed to produce spares and identified disconnects and solutions that would improve mission capability and manage cost (see table 1). Each team developed a flowchart showing how it believed processes related to its focus area should function and be managed to improve weapon system availability and cost management. The teams also identified disconnects or barriers preventing the processes from functioning as they should and recommended solutions to correct these disconnects. Twelve major deficiencies were noted, and more than 190 corrective actions were identified, which resulted in 20 initiatives, 19 of which were related to spare parts shortages. As of February 2003, 7 of 19 spare parts initiatives have been started. The DMRT effort, focused on deficiencies in depot maintenance processes. Various teams identified disconnects and barriers in these processes, reviewed Air Force current initiatives that affected depot maintenance, and identified industry best practices and benchmarking, receiving input from Air Force management, major commands, and Air Logistics Centers. More than 300 barriers to depot maintenance operational and financial performance were identified and consolidated into more than 40 major issues organized around 8 overarching focus areas. This resulted in 64 initiatives, 24 of which were related to spare parts. All 24 of the spare parts related initiatives have been started. Table 2 below summarizes the status of the Spares Campaign and DMRT initiatives as of February 2003. Appendix II provides a description of the 31 Spares Campaign and DMRT initiatives that have been started and estimated completion dates. The Air Force Strategic Plan is appropriately structured to provide a framework for mitigating spare parts shortages, but its two subordinate plans are not aligned with it in terms of performance measures. Consistent with sound management principles underlying the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), the strategic plan includes a mission statement, long-term goals, and performance measures and targets, and some of these elements relate to spare parts shortages. However, the performance measures and targets in the subordinate plans are not consistent with those in the strategic plan or none are stated. This lack of alignment with the Air Force Strategic Plan’s performance measures and targets means that the service cannot measure the contribution of the actions it takes in response to the subordinate plans toward overcoming spare parts shortages and be assured that implementing the subordinate plans will mitigate critical spare parts shortages and give the Air Force its greatest readiness return on investment. The Air Force Strategic Plan, issued between April 1998 and May 2000, generally includes an effective strategy consistent with GPRA guidelines, and it generally represents an effective framework for reducing spare parts shortages. The plan applies to the Air Force as a whole and contains a mission statement, strategic goals, and output-related performance measures and targets. Specifically, the strategic plan has three goals: Goal 1 is to ensure a high quality force of people, Goal 2 is to enable commanders to respond to all types of crises, and Goal 3 is to prepare for an uncertain future by pursuing a modernization program. Each goal contains mission critical tasks (such as “Maximize the efficiency of operating and maintaining Air Force resources”) along with related performance measures and targets for determining progress toward achieving its strategic goals. Of the three strategic goals, Goal 2 addresses the mitigation of spare parts shortages. It has two mission critical tasks and 19 performance measures, many specifically related to improving spare parts inventories. One mission critical task, to “improve mission effectiveness while minimizing risk,” cites the percentage of aircraft that cannot perform their mission because spare parts are not available as a performance measure. It also cites performance targets for each aircraft. For example, the target for the F-15E is 9 percent and for the B-1 it is 22 percent, meaning that percent of the aircraft cannot perform their mission because of spare parts shortages (see appendix III for the not mission capable supply rate targets). The second mission critical task, to “maximize the efficiency of operating and maintaining the Air Force resources,” has the elapsed time between when a customer submits an order and receives the part as a performance measure. The major subordinate plans for implementing the Air Force Strategic Plan include goals similar to those in the strategic plan. However, their performance measures and targets are not linked to those in the strategic plan. The subordinate plans are the Logistics Support Plan and the Supply Strategic Plan (see fig. 1). The Logistics Support Plan was developed to provide authoritative, strategic direction and front-end guidance for Air Force logistics capabilities planning. It includes the same goals as the higher plan, and it contains objectives for accomplishing these goals. The plan does not include quantitative or qualitative output-related performance measures and targets that will yield the performance information needed to assess goal accomplishment at either the subordinate or strategic plan levels in order to measure results. Instead, it includes measures that will only yield information about whether or not a specific process was implemented. For example, the completion of combat support doctrine is the performance measure cited for accomplishing the objective to improve combat support to warfighters by developing and applying an Agile Combat Support doctrine. Another nonquantitative or qualitative performance measure was full fielding of identified total asset visibility capabilities for the objective to fully implement total asset visibility. The Supply Strategic Plan was intended to (1) create an integrated process for Air Force supply planning, (2) establish the planning infrastructure to facilitate information exchange throughout Air Force Supply, and (3) improve Air Force Supply’s measures of effectiveness. This plan contains five long-term goals that are consistent with the higher plan’s goals, and it has 19 objectives, 71 tasks to accomplish these objectives, and a projected end-state for some of these tasks. Some end-states are similar to the strategic plan’s output-related performance measures, but do not have corresponding performance targets. For example, one end-state discusses incidents of aircraft being not mission capable due to the lack of spare parts, but it does not specify a target (i.e., the desired percentage of incidences) against which to measure improvement. Other end-states did not discuss performance measures at all. For example, one end-state is completion of the new Air Force Supply Stockage Policy Guide and making it available to supply officers worldwide. Without effective quantitative and qualitative measures that flow from the Strategic Plan structure to the subordinate plans, the Air Force cannot determine the extent to which the implementation of these plans is contributing to its overall strategic goal relating to overcoming spare parts shortages. Furthermore, the Air Force cannot be assured that implementing the subordinate plans will give them the greatest readiness return on their investment. Key logistics initiatives being implemented by the Air Force may help to mitigate spare parts shortages, but their potential effectiveness is limited for several reasons. The Air Force has begun a major logistics transformation effort intended to improve the entire logistics process and identified numerous initiatives to improve its logistics process by addressing deficiencies, barriers, or disconnects. However, it has not implemented 12 of the 43 initiatives it identified as needed to address spare parts shortages nor demonstrated that all key aspects of these 12 have been incorporated into other initiatives underway. In addition, 23 of the 31 initiatives being implemented lack performance measures and targets. The Air Force also chose not to use the results of one of its initiatives, which identified a new consolidated requirement for spare parts; consequently, additional spare parts shortages could occur. Lastly, management problems identified by an Air Force review team in 2002 have hampered implementation of the initiatives, and its new directorate, established in February 2003, has not established a plan or priorities to address these problems. In 2001, the Air Force identified 43 initiatives to improve processes related to spare parts shortages—19 as part of the Spares Campaign and 24 as part of the DMRT. As of February 2003, 31 of the 43 initiatives have been started. The Air Force has started all 24 DMRT initiatives that relate to improving spare parts shortages, but has started only 7 of the 19 initiatives that relate to spare parts shortages arising from the Spares Campaign. Table 3 shows the implementation status of Spares Campaign initiatives. According to the Air Force, it chose to start the seven Spares Campaign initiatives that reflected its highest priorities, provided greatest impact to the logistics processes, and resulted in highest payback to the Air Force. The remaining 12 initiatives have not been started because the Air Force said it did not have the needed personnel and funding. Although the Air Force provided a document showing that some aspects of the remaining initiatives had been embedded into the Ten Focus Initiatives of the Spares Campaign, we could not verify that all of these initiatives had been started. Also, we could not validate that all of the deficiencies, disconnects, or barriers intended to be addressed by the remaining 12 initiatives were actually being addressed.