F-35 Joint Program Office: $1.4 billion sustainment contract to Lockheed Martin industry team

The F-35 Joint Program Office has awarded the Lockheed Martin industry team a $1.4 billion sustainment contract to support F-35fighter jets worldwide for U.S. military and international customers.
The annual contract funds sustainment support activities for aircraft currently in the fleet, as well as building enterprise capacity to support the future fleet of more than 3,000 F-35 aircraft.
The contract also covers Automatic Logistics Information System support, predictive health management and data analytics; supply chain logistics; air system maintenance; sustaining engineering; depot activation; and pilot and maintainer training, for all U.S. and international F-35s through April 30, 2019.
“This contract is critical to ensuring the transformational F-35s are mission ready to support our men and women in uniform,” said Bridget Lauderdale, Lockheed Martin vice president of F-35 Global Sustainment. “We are taking aggressive actions to improve F-35 aircraft availability and reduce sustainment costs. As the sustainment system matures and the size of the operational fleet grows, we are confident we will deliver more capability at less cost than legacy aircraft.”
Lockheed Martin is implementing comprehensive actions to improve readiness and reduce industry costs, to include:

• Expanding the networked global supply chain to improve component repair capacity, throughput and velocity.
• Investing in enhanced diagnostics and data analytics to improve flight line readiness and drive down costs.
• Pre-funding spares buys and synchronizing production and sustainment component orders to achieve volume cost reductions and improve parts availability.

The company said it has implemented several measures to reduce F-35 costs and improve readiness such as investments in data analytics and diagnostics; synchronization of production and component orders for sustainment; and expansion of the global supply chain.
Bridget Lauderdale, Lockheed Martin vice president of F-35 global sustainment, addressed the sustainment cost issue in a news release. “We are taking aggressive actions to improve F-35 aircraft availability and reduce sustainment costs. As the sustainment system matures and the size of the operational fleet grows, we are confident we will deliver more capability at less cost than legacy aircraft,” she stated.
The company has already taken some steps to try to improve readiness and repair costs, including expanding the supply chain, buying spare parts ahead of need to boost availability and achieve economies of scale, and investing in diagnostic and data analytics technologies, it said.

Source Lockheed Martin, www.govconwire.com, www.defensenews.com