C.Robert Roll

Examines the development and recent implementation of maintenance forward support locations, also known as Centralized Intermediate Repair Facilities. This study examines a reconfiguration of the current U. S. Air Force support system that would implement maintenance forward support locations to consolidate intermediate maintenance near the theater of operations. Such locations are known as Centralized Intermediate Repair Facilities, or CIRFs. The report recommends that the Air Force explore the use of CIRFs outside of the United States as wel as within, establish an Operational Support Center at each Major Cornmand, and centralize OownershipO of engines and pods.

Describes a review conducted as a joint effort by the U. S. Air Force and the RAND Corporation (acting as analytic advisor) to develop improvement options for mitigating wing-level logistics problems that began in the 1990s. 450-character abstract: Upon direction from the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the RAND Corporation (as analytic advisor) and the Air Force conducted a joint review of logistics wing-level processes aimed at developing improvement options to mitigate logistics problems in meeting increasing readiness demands. The authors describe the analytic approach and results of this Chief's Logistics Review, as well as how the solution options designed to improve wing-level logistics processes were implemented, tested, and then evaluated at selected air bases.

This report presents a construct for reorganizing Air Force acquisition and purchasing activities by implementing purchasing and supply management. This report presents a construct for reorganizing Air Force acquisition and purchasing activities using purchasing and supply management (PSM). PSM involves managing not only suppliers but the entire supply network. A PSM demonst ration was chartered and eight initiatives were targeted to help modernize the spares process and ultimately put more spares into the hands of maintainers. The report presents a flexible, springboard design to guide implementation of the process.

An assessment of the manner in which the services have altered their planning, programming, and budgeting processes in response to the changes brought about by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols legislation. The Goldwater-Nichols legislation, passed in 1986, sought to counterbalance the decisionmaking authority of the services by giving the Commanders-in-Chief (CINCs) a far greater voice in the determination of operational requirements. Toward this goal, the CINCs' spokesperson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was empowered to integrate CINC requirements as well as to demonstrate how those requirements related to joint operational readiness. This report examines in detail how the Goldwater-Nichols legislation has affected decisionmaking within the Department of Defense and, more specifically, how the individual services have responded to the changes brought about by that legislation. After first describing the forces that underlay the passage of Goldwater-Nichols, the report outlines the manner in which the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force have changed their decision models as well as their planning, programming, and budgeting processes in order to better respond to CINC demands. The report concludes that all of the services have to varying degrees undergone some reorganization in response to the changes brought about by Goldwater-Nichols. However, those changes, which have largely reflected the cultures of the individual services, have been incremental at best and have yet to fully meet the challenge this new decisionmaking environment has posed. [AF]