Air Force Maintenance Depots

The Air Force maintains depot repair capability to assure aircraft and equipment readiness in peacetime, to sustain this hardware in the initial surge of a contingency or war, and to provide a base for rapid expansion.

The Air Force spent about $7.7 billion in fiscal year 1976 to operate and maintain 8,450 aircraft, large numbers of missiles, and other equipment; about $2.8 billion was spent for operations and maintenance. Although the Air Force has made significant progress in measuring the depot maintenance capability to meet mobilization requirements, maintenance depots, as currently configured, cannot support requirements which the Air Force anticipates in a "surge" period for most of its weapon systems. Air Force flying hour estimates for high-surge transport aircraft exceeded the number possible under present conditions. Other factors distorting the Air Force estimate of readiness relate to: lack of a full assessment of contractor abilities, personnel to meet surge requirements, estimates for repair parts, and bottlenecks in depot production processes. Problems in industrial engineering techniques which affect depot's productivity include: failure to emphasize the analysis of job design/work methods, questionable accuracy of labor standards, and chronic problems such as lack of repair parts. Many improvements are needed to assure that in time of crises the Air Logistics Centers can perform their assigned tasks, including acquiring and training people.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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