Land equipment maintenance is evolving rapidly. It now has to be able to respond to the increase in operations and rising costs while improving the support it gives to the armed forces. To that end two major changes were made by the Army in 2005. The first is aimed at improving support to the forces by being closer to them and reacting more effectively, through a major reorganisation of the equipment service of the Army, which is in hand. The aim of the second is to make the industrial side of maintenance more effective by gradually implementing new supply policies worked out by the DGA (the French armaments agency) together with its public and private partners.
Maintenance in Operational Condition: a Confirmed and Shared Process
Maintenance in operational condition (MOC) is aimed at ensuring the operational availability of equipment in all places and at all times. In metropolitan France, it contributes to the maintenance of the operational capabilities of the armed forces by ensuring the existence of a capacity for immediate force projection and by providing units with the equipment necessary for their operational readiness. The management of this support is by nature a complex task, requiring a constant balancing of the budgetary resources allotted and a stockpiling policy taking account of the acquisition of new equipment, the scrapping or renovation of old materiel and the rate of utilisation and reliability of equipment in service. Subjected as it is to increasingly intense operational activity, increases in the cost of maintenance and internal budgetary constraints, the organisation of MOC must nowadays respond to a double challenge. On the one hand, it must preserve and improve the capabilities, resources and skills needed to support the operational commitments of the land forces and, on the other hand, optimise the industrial character of some aspects of maintenance as a function of the budgetary resources of the ministry and developments in the sphere of the armaments industry.
Refocusing on the ‘Core Business’
To achieve this, the Army has reviewed the organisation and the mission of its maintenance chain, by refocusing on operational support, its ‘core business’. This development, which is currently under way, is accompanied by a redefinition of the defence/industrial partnership in order to get the private sector to provide services, at an acceptable cost and timeliness, which do not directly compete with support for equipment in service.
Reorganisation of the Maintenance Chain
The reorganisation of the maintenance chain, necessitated by the quest for better synergy and a desire to improve the availability of equipment, has been achieved by three types of vigorous measures.
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