Savings on the shelf

  • Published
  • By John Burt
  • AFCEC Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  What happens when good things go bad? If it's emergency protective equipment past its listed expiration date, it has to be thrown away and repurchased.

Extending the service life of this equipment reduces waste and saves money, so logistics experts in the Air Force Civil Engineer Center Readiness Directorate's Emergency Management Division here are finding ways to do just that. In fiscal 2013, they created more than $33 million in cost avoidance savings for the Air Force by being able to keep tens of thousands of useful protective boots, suits and gloves.

"This joint service program tests and evaluates equipment used to protect against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats," said Rodney Whaley, CBRN equipment shelf life manager. "By testing this equipment at set intervals, it gives us a better understanding of the actual life-cycle of these items. The goal is to save money and avoid unnecessarily replacing good equipment."

The Air Force currently maintains more than 316,000 chemical warfare bags, or C-bags, used by Airmen when they deploy. Each bag contains a variety of items including a protective suit called the joint service lightweight integrated suit technology, or JSLIST. The suit, the most expensive item in the bag, was originally fielded with a five-year expiration date.

"When we first performed five-year tests on the JSLIST, we noticed the physical and chemical properties of the suit had not significantly degraded," said Whaley. "In some cases the chemical properties of the suit were actually better, so we stopped testing at the five-year mark and began testing at the 10-year point instead."

Further testing at different shelf life stages proved the suit's service-life could be extended to 15 years.

"That's significant savings in testing as well as millions saved by not having to buy those suits at the five- or 10-year mark," said Whaley.

Because of the sheer size of the Air Force, getting accurate inventory data on the millions of pieces of protective equipment stored around the world would be a challenge for AFCEC's EM team if not for the support from base-level emergency managers and logisticians.

"There are more than 200 supply points that have this gear, ranging from large installations in the United States to smaller bases abroad." said Bob Jennings, emergency management logistics branch chief. "We rely on each of them to make accurate data inputs in their tracking system so our team can compile that information and find which items to test."

Joint service cooperation has also been key to the program's success. Each service shares data and cost responsibility on item testing based on the amount of equipment they own and in fiscal 2013, the Air Force reaped the benefits of testing paid for by other services.

"The Air Force got to extend more than 52,000 pairs of protective overboots as a result of testing," said Whaley.

There are cases, Whaley added, where the Air Force owns the majority of a production lot so other services reap the benefit.

Although the Air Force and other services work together to test the majority of C-bag items, some equipment has traditionally been handled solely by the U.S. Army. AFCEC equipment experts expect this to change.

"In the past, items like decontaminating kits and protective mask filters were funded by the Army's Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command," said Whaley. "With the current fiscal climate, that's not the case anymore. Now it's up to Air Force and our service partners to come up with a mutual plan to most effectively manage these items."

"The program is a massive effort but the return on investment has been extraordinary," said Jennings. "AFCEC will continue to work with the other services as well as the Air Force's logistics community and the equipment managers to manage these assets and help maintain the Air Force's overall equipment readiness."