The past year and a half have been extraordinary for the Navy and for Naval Aviation. As the CNO says, “Naval Aviation allows us to take credible combat power across the globe without a permission slip.” Naval Aviation is what makes the U.S. Navy different from any other navy across the globe.
Naval Aviation applied that combat power with incredible efficiency and effectiveness last year in Operation Iraqi Freedom, which brought freedom to millions of people who were deprived of it.
Naval Aviation demonstrated its readiness and surge capability when seven of its 12 carriers were forward deployed in support of OIF. An eighth carrier was at sea, ready to go. We also deployed nine big-deck amphibious ships (LHA/LHD) with their embarked Marine Corps and Navy aircraft. It was truly an impressive and awe-inspiring demonstration of power, dedication and ingenuity. We are the best in the world at what we do — generating readiness and warfighting capability.
Investing in Naval Aviation
Two or three years ago, power-projection capability of that scale would have been a much greater challenge. Since assuming his leadership role, the CNO has made critical investments in readiness. Without those targeted investments, we would not have been able to place that enormous force forward during OIF.
However, those investments involved more than applying increased dollars. While the total Navy budget was increased, with it came the expectation that we become more selective in how our money is spent. Our successes were a direct result of the implementation of carefully focused initiatives, based on research and analysis that targeted and improved our readiness.
It is now our challenge to institutionalize and sustain that surge capability and readiness into the future with the Fleet Readiness Program (FRP). Traditionally, less than 15 percent of the Navy’s annual budget is used to pay for current readiness — like flying hours, steaming days, and aircraft and ship maintenance. In the past, this “piece-of-the-budget pie” has fallen short of our requirement to maintain our appetite for readiness.
In order to garner the current readiness levels achieved, we paid for it with our future capabilities. We traded airplanes and ships from our future inventory in order to pay for what we need today. We achieved readiness at the expense of our future force structure.
One contributor to this institutional behavior is Naval Aviation’s focus on readiness … readiness at any cost. We produce readiness and warfighting capability, and our successful pursuits have been without a careful eye to the costs. We must now generate readiness with a sharper eye toward cost to ensure that we are firmly in control of our future.
Dollar-for-Dollar Readiness
The CNO said it best in his 2003 Sea Power policy statement: “A key ingredient to sustaining both our readiness today and our investment for the future is ensuring we produce current readiness from every dollar. This requires involved and energetic leadership, innovative thinking, calculated risk taking and willingness to change [in order] to strengthen our combat effectiveness.”
We are applying those principles in Naval Aviation as we move from “readiness at any cost” to “cost-wise readiness.” Our goals are to build and continue to maintain the premier power projection force for peace, to continue the War on Terror, and to institutionalize the surge capability of the FRP.
We have set a steady course to find efficiencies in achieving that readiness. To do that, we must know and understand how our business works and how our business processes function. It requires rigorous and unbiased introspection and self-assessment. It requires soliciting and listening to outside perspectives and evaluations.
We need to measure our processes against today’s best business practices in other disciplines, across other professions, including government and industry. We must know our business, the business of Naval Aviation and the business of producing readiness, in order to make it as efficient as possible.
AIRSpeed, the Concept and the Process
The AIRSpeed methodology provides the tools to enable the Naval Aviation Readiness Integrated Improvement Program (NAVRIIP). NAVRIIP will create fundamental process changes in the way the Navy provides manpower, equipment and training to Stateside Naval Aviation commands between deployments. The AIRSpeed program will balance and align maintenance and supply activities to end-user demand by ensuring the right material is in the right place, at the right time and at the right cost. In doing so, AIRSpeed will ensure that the warfighter has the assets necessary to support Ready for Tasking (RFT) requirements and entitlements set forth in the NAVRIIP Interdeployment Readiness Cycle (IDRC).
AIRSpeed creates an environment where continuous process improvements can take place. It leverages existing initiatives by synergizing a proven set of tools with the Theory of Constraints (TOC) at the foundation.
The Navy’s AIRSpeed program focuses on three major areas that drive cost:
- Throughput (the process of maintaining our aircraft across operational, intermediate and depot levels)
- Inventory/Investment (parts, equipment, facilities, number of weapons systems)
- Operating Expense.
AIRSpeed will reduce the total cost of Naval Aviation through:
- Improved repair/logistics response
- Reduced inventories, operating expenses and manpower
- Decreased cycle times
- Increased throughput
- More consistent production
- Increased Time on Wing.
We needed a major change in the way aircraft are maintained to achieve cost-wise readiness. Through the adaptation of best commercial business practices, AIRSpeed integrates these into an overall strategy. The practices chosen are:
- Theory of Constraints — allows an organization to identify and focus on constraints that have the greatest impact on productivity.
- The Lean manufacturing process — focuses on removing waste and/or steps in the processes that don’t add value to the final product.
- Six Sigma — improves processes overall by reducing variation across repetitive processes.
TOC has been chosen as the overarching architecture. It will determine the most effective application of the Lean and Six Sigma tools.
We have developed an Executive Leadership Training course to expose senior aviation leaders, including carrier COs, CAGs, program managers, wing commodores and their logistics triad, to the AIRSpeed concepts. These four-day courses began in February 2004 and provided training for 216 personnel. Additional courses are in the planning stages.
In order to meet the CNO’s requirements, we need a unique capability that supports cost-wise flexibility and responsiveness. To date, AIRSpeed has been implemented at eight Navy and Marine Corps activities. We are projecting all ConUS sites will have completed their initial training by the end of CY ’05. AIRSpeed is our solution and will make a lasting and profound logistical and cultural change in the way Naval Aviation maintains and supplies the force.
We simply cannot continue to support present requirements with future funding. We will continue to move away from readiness at any cost, and seek cost-wise readiness so that we can sustain and prevail in the War on Terror and remain the world’s best Naval Aviation force.
Fly, Fight, Lead!