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NEW CUMBERLAND, Pa. - An agency engineer’s recent vigilance will save taxpayers $3.3 million and result in the new M109A7 Paladin Howitzer being less vulnerable to mines and improvised explosive devices on the battlefield.
David Bickford, an industrial engineer with Defense Contract Management Agency New Cumberland, uncovered a supplier’s failure to adhere to the contract’s military specifications during the howitzer’s low rate initial production stage. The failure would have been critical to the survivability protection provided by the vehicle’s frame and would have resulted in risk to the lives and welfare of warfighters.
The new Paladin Integrated Management system’s frame for the next howitzer iteration, the M109A7 represents a significant upgrade to the current M109A6 Paladin, the premier artillery weapon system of the Army.
Bickford’s discovery led to an immediate engineering change that incorporated a new material procedure in manufacturing the new PIM system’s frame. The timeliness of this change allowed the program office to validate the change during ballistic testing, enabling the PIM’s LRIP to remain on schedule. The new material fabrication procedure will result in not only a safer vehicle, but also in less expensive vehicle structure costs, resulting in a considerable cost savings for the Army.
Bickford said his ability to identify and mitigate the howitzer’s structural shortcoming is attributable to his extensive experience with armored vehicles and artillery.
After earning a mechanical engineering degree from Penn State, he commissioned as an Army infantry officer through the university’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. He then spent four years in Army infantry and Ranger units with four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. After his active duty military service, he worked in the private sector in design and industrial engineering roles for several defense contractors while continuing his military service with the Army National Guard.
By the time he joined DCMA in 2010, Bickford gained sound experience in operational work, technical design, and production with armored vehicles and artillery platforms.
“Operational experience coupled with multidisciplinary engineering experience helps me be more effective in a defense acquisition engineering role,” said Bickford. “As engineers we review contractors’ work and their processes and procedures to ensure deliverables are in accordance with the contract. This includes providing advice to the program office engineering team, participating in the engineering, design and production technical reviews, and assessing the manufacturers’ readiness levels.”
Bickford attributes the PIM system’s successful program oversight to the role of the contract management office’s program support team.
“The PST consists of engineering, quality assurance and contracts staff that together form a functional team,” said Bickford. “Their contract oversight provides assessments to a program integrator or DCMA program manager.”
PSTs provide major program support for the larger defense Acquisition Category I programs, by reviewing and reporting on the program’s overall performance and progress to the DCMA program integrator.
“I’m very proud of Dave and our PST for what they have accomplished for the taxpayers,” said Army Lt. Col. Dexter Daniel, DCMA New Cumberland commander. “This illustrates the value of our mission to the acquisition process across (the Department of Defense) in minimizing cost as well as providing crucial weapons that perform to their expected capabilities.”
The next milestone for the PIM is the physical configuration audit, which will take place over a six-month period. This will ensure all requirements are met and the configuration baseline is validated prior to the testing phase. The PIM is expected to complete its LRIP vehicle production in February 2017, when full rate production will begin. At that point, the cost savings attributable to Bickford’s discovery could increase more than tenfold — by an additional $34 million.
| Date Taken: | 01.08.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 01.12.2015 10:48 |
| Story ID: | 151775 |
| Location: | NEW CUMBERLAND, PA, US |
| Web Views: | 627 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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