“Growing Pains:” The Army’s Transition to Two-Level Maintenance

In the 1980s and 1990s, executive officers (XOs), along with their maintenance officers and technicians, constantly struggled to get equipment evacuated, inspected, and accepted by support units. Simultaneously, these leaders managed an enormous organizational workload, resulting from scheduled services and command maintenance periods. Maintenance leaders constantly searched for buried work order and supply requests in preparation for lengthy maintenance meetings that occupied the majority of their time and efforts. An abused priority system in both maintenance and supply prevented support assets from focusing efforts on the most immediate needs; personal intervention was constantly required. The level of effort required by XOs to manage equipment maintenance in the complex four-level system was certainly excessive when compared to the amount of resources available in the support structure. Transformed modular forces have been built with anew maintenance system, two levels of maintenance, which is designed to address many of these maintenance frustrations. The Army maintenance transformation (AMT) plan explains the conversion from a four-echeloned maintenance structure to a two-echeloned structure. This article explains the new concept, the revised processes, and addresses some of the challenges units face while implementing this transition. The Reason for Change Our previous maintenance system was characterized by the term “fix forward.” In this system, support maintenance companies were pushed forward to make repairs and return equipment to operational condition. Maintenance tasks were accomplished at the lowest possible level; if maintenance requirements exceeded resources at a particular level, then the task was either evacuated to a higher level, or higher-level assets were sent forward to complete the repairs.

Specific capabilities existed only at certain levels, which required the Ar my to deploy three echelons to have a full range of capabilities in a theater of operations during deployment. This resulted in a large maintenance footprint, requiring an even larger logistics foot-Four-Level Two-Level Number of total steps in the process 78 27 Number of steps updating forms and records 47 10 Number of people involved in the evacuation process 10 4 Number of people who confirmed the fault 5 3 Number of people who validated work order 5 2 Figure 1 48

— print to support additional maintenance units. The previous system, developed during World War II, served the Army well; however, with new technologies in information, maintainability, and diagnostics, and the speed at which we can move personnel, equipment, and parts, we needed to commen-surately update our processes.

Why this New System is Better Consider this example of a typical maintenance action: Under the four-level maintenance system, an operator identified a class III leak from a differential output seal. The operator annotated the fault on the Department of the Army Form 5988-E (Equipment Maintenance and Inspection Worksheet) during the after-operations checks. The fault was then reported to organizational maintenance on the 5988-E upon closing the dispatch. Receiving a 5988-E with a deficiency, organizational maintenance verified the fault and began the process of evacuating the truck to the support maintenance company. Prior to evacuation, all unit-level faults had to be corrected. A unit-level logistics system (ULLS)-generated work request was produced. Since the vehicle was in a “not mission capable” (NMC) status, the commander had to circle “X” the fault, or tow the truck to the support maintenance company’s area. Once there, the inspection section conducted an initial acceptance inspection to verify the fault, but would most certainly identify additional shortcomings for the unit to correct. The vehicle would then be taken back to the unit’s location to correct these faults, and then back to the support maintenance company to verify corrective action, and so on.

By following “by the book” instructions, U. S. Army Field Manual (FM) 4-30.3, Maintenance Operations and Procedures, to correct this fault, the unit executed 78 total steps, 47 of which were merely updating records, and the vehicle was transported to or from the support shop four times.1 Figure 1 shows a comparison of the steps necessary to complete the evacuation and repair process in the four- and two-level systems.

In an effort to get systems repaired and reduce system down time, critical steps were often bypassed. Figure 2 is a simplified comparison of the steps necessary to complete a repair action in the two different systems and shows the reduction in evacuations and redundant inspections by implementing two-level maintenance. With the merger of unit and direct-support maintenance, the process is much more streamlined; redundancies in paperwork, evacuations, inspections, and verifications are reduced, providing reduced repair cycle time and greater efficiency in all processes.

Consolidating Four Levels into Two A significant difference in the two-level maintenance system is its introduction of a “replace forward/repair rear” concept, as opposed to the previous fix-forward philosophy. The new concept employs maintainers on the battlefield to identify a faulty component and replace it, thereby returning equipment — 49 to the fight more quickly and leaving the lengthy time-consuming repair work to the next echelon. The new two-level maintenance system combines the previous echelons of unit and direct-support maintenance to form field maintenance (see Figure 3). Field maintenance focuses on returning equipment to the battle quickly by troubleshooting a system to isolate and replace the malfunctioning component. The previous system would attempt to repair components as far forward as possible. In the new two-level maintenance system, replacements occur within brigade combat teams (BCT) and repairs are generally done at echelons above brigade. Field maintenance includes tasks necessary to bring the system back to operational status and return it to the fight. The previous echelons of general support and depot maintenance are now combined to form sustainment maintenance. Sustainment maintenance tasks are focused on overhauling, rebuilding, and repairing components, assemblies, and modules, and ultimately returning them to the supply system (see Figure 3). Modular BCTs will have no sustainment maintenance capability; most repair tasks, previously direct support, have been shifted to the sustainment maintenance level. Ideally, sustainment maintenance activities will provide support to the supply system from the Continental United States. However, in an effort to return equipment to the supply system as quickly as possible and support surges in demand for critical readiness drivers, sustainment maintenance activities may be located anywhere in the supply chain. On-System and Off-System Field maintenance, the maintenance a unit conducts on its organic equipment, is now referred to as “on-system maintenance,” which focuses on returning end items, systems, or subsystems to a fully mission-capable status. On-system tasks include preventive maintenance services, diagnostics to identify faulty components, replacing faulty components, and battle damage Figure 2 Comparison of the Work Flow Action Four-Level Two-Level Create a unit-level work order number 9 Unit 9 Field Maintenance supervisor verifies fault 9 9 Prep for evacuation 9

Transport to support activity location 9

Acceptance/rejection inspection by support 9 DS

Transport back to unit to work off faults 9 Unit

Work off faults from direct support initial inspection 9

Re-inspect at support 9 DS

Create a DS work order number 9

Order parts, receive, and issue needed parts 9 9 Assign to shop section, supervisor inspects 9

Mechanic repairs 9 9 In-process inspection 9 9 Shop section supervisor final quality control inspection 9 9 Inspection sections final inspection 9 Unit

Customer inspect/accepts 9

Transport to unit 9 assessment and repair (BDAR). All maintenance activities, including sustainment activities, in the Army will conduct field maintenance.

A limited number of previous direct-support repair tasks will continue to be performed at the field-maintenance level due to their criticality in sustaining equipment readiness. We now refer to these tasks as “near-system maintenance.” A good example of a near-system task is repairing line replaceable units. Technically, this task is to repair a component and would be categorized as sustainment maintenance; however, due to its criticality in maintaining equipment readiness, the decision was made to keep this near-system task in the BCT, thus making it afield maintenance task. Sustainment maintenance task is characterized as, “off-system maintenance,” which includes tasks necessary to return components, modules, assemblies, and end items to the supply system. Sustainment maintenance activities will perform diagnostics and repair components, modules, or assemblies. Segregating on-system and off-system tasks has removed the lengthy time-consuming repair work from the battlefield and placed it back at the sustainment echelon, for which Army Materiel Command has responsibility. This allows maneuver commanders to focus on the fight (see Figure 4). Additionally, these improved business processes will reduce the logistics footprint and eliminate redundancies and unnecessary steps. Figure 5 shows some key differences between the two levels of maintenance.

The changes needed to implement two levels of maintenance have stretched across all levels of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF). For example, maintenance doctrinal publications have been updated; unit structure has changed, merging previous organizational and direct-support organizations; and soldiers have been retrained from organizational or direct-Figure 3 Figure 4 50

— Replace BDAR

Repair of components, assemblies, modules Collection and Classification Overhaul Rebuild Depots Diagnose Army Maintenance Transformation Four-Level Maintenance System Di d t –Echeloned maintenance –Large logistics footprint –Reliant on evacuation systems –Built-in overhead burden Disadvantages Unit Crew/Operator Organizational General Support Depot Direct Support Built in overhead burden –Backup maintenance support Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, Facilities -Reduced footprint L ti ti Advantages S t i t -Less evacuation time -Self-contained -Streamline C2 -Faster response -Modular Sustainment Two-Level Maintenance System Field support mechanics into multicapable maintainers. However, many units are not sure if they have the necessary components to operate under the new two-level maintenance concept, and many are not sure how to tell.

To evaluate an organization’s ability to conduct maintenance under the two-level maintenance concept, log on to Army Knowledge Online (AKO), then use https://www.us.army.mil/ suite/doc/13626371 to open the two-level maintenance scorecard. The scorecard provides commanders a mechanism to evaluate each DOTMLPF area for essential components necessary to conduct maintenance under the two-level maintenance concept, and provides a red, amber, or green result. The Army has provided many new enablers, such as tools, automation systems, facilities, and training, to assist in the performance of maintenance in this new two-tiered system. However, all these things are not necessarily required to implement two-level maintenance; all you need are the basics — tools and Figure 5 Field Maintenance Sustainment Maintenance What?

Replace Repair Characterized by On or near system Off system Support what?

Weapon System Supply System Done where?

In every organization in the Army Echelons above brigade — 51 training. Two-level maintenance is a simpler, more streamlined system that gives commanders more control of their maintenance resources and assets. Leaders at all levels must implement this new system, and learn and understand its capabilities.