Courtesy Photo | FORT BELVOIR, VA. (JUNE 22, 2022) – Mrs. Michelle Graham, the Propulsion Lead on the...... read more read more
Subscribe
The F-35 Joint Program Office's (JPO) long-term availability goal is an environment of sustainment excellence. This includes initiatives to keep parts on wing longer, maintain an appropriate spares posture, and enhance repair capability and velocity.
The Product Support Manager (PSM) team at the JPO is a collection of talented people who manage the F-35 supply chain logistics and sustainment for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, seven international partners, and foreign military sales customers. Additionally, it develops the holistic life cycle support strategy that executes unique cost-sharing agreements and individual maintenance strategies for the F-35 enterprise.
Michelle Graham is a proud member of PSM who works daily on the Supply Chain Management (SCM) team to expand the availability of spares for the F-35 global fleet. This team supports the JPO's initial spares effort: from request for proposal development, through spares delivery, and then on to sustainment.
She arrived at the JPO in 2020, just as F-35 leadership shifted to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Thankfully, I work with an amazing JPO team that helped me transition without being there in person," Graham noted about the SCM's work ethic. "I enjoy the work we do to solve a puzzle or a bigger puzzle over the long term."
"Michelle learned F-35 SCM without face-to-face office interaction. She quickly learned the ins and outs of acquisition strategy and fostered a collaborative attitude across the matrixed Propulsion Program Management Office," said Rodney Cook, SCM team lead. He notes that the work here requires an adept ability to communicate with stakeholders, quickly resolve issues effectively, and strategically think about future sustainment strategies.
Although Graham has flourished at the JPO, it was not her immediate career aspiration.
"My undergrad is actually in history, and I intended to be a teacher,” said Graham. “Instead, I married a Naval officer specializing in supply logistics, and we began traveling for his career.".
Graham then decided to find a job in supply chain management. She started at Naval Supply Systems Command weapon systems support as an item manager in the integrated weapon support team for engines. Graham discovered that she enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of the work and began pursuing a master's degree in supply chain management while concurrently working in the field.
Graham's experiences gave her an acute understanding of the Navy's supply chain. The crux of her contributions to the JPO deal with supply chain issues.
"With a supply chain, if there are kinks or breaks, it takes a team to understand what caused that disruption and to fix it," said Graham of supply chain woes. "Interestingly, our country sees the unintended consequences of an action within a supply chain and how it trickles down. And then suddenly, six months later, you have a disaster because nobody looked at the entire chain when a plug was pulled. One small change in it can really impact its entirety."
At the JPO, Graham is the SCM team's propulsion lead. Graham procures the initial spares for repair and maintaining of the F135 engines.
"When I'm getting the initial spares on contract, it's a very long process from beginning to end," she explained. "It is a contract that possesses many working pieces as I manage budget and requirements that we need to make sure match and negotiating with (industry partners).
Graham closely coordinates with the international partners to address their funding in a global spares pool. She manages the U.S. budgets, takes those cost share rules, and ensures that all participants can contribute their proper share. If one participant can't, it affects the entire delivery order.
"Say one partner country always pays 5% of the bill. How much they have available makes a difference and can cause the entire procurement to cut down,” said Graham, about the details involved with managing the spares budgets with U.S. services and international partners. “So, a good amount of time is spent on the creation of the delivery order, reaching out and having a lot of clarifying discussions with folks to make sure that everybody has the right amount of money ready to go within a short period of time," she added.
Cook, the SCM lead, expressed that Graham is professional, accountable, and hard-working.
"Michelle's calm but firm nature aligns with the PSM mission and allows her to work independently across the SCM team, JPO, and industry teammates," he said.
Graham finds it rewarding knowing that she supports the warfighter.
"I'm from a military family, so to me, it is not supporting strangers - these are real people that I support with my JPO work," said Graham. "It's important to ensure that these warfighters have the initial allowances where they need it when they need it."
Graham advises that you enter the JPO humble and ready to learn, make mistakes, and then learn from those mistakes.
"There's a lot of times that you're stepping out of your norm and doing something new and doing it publicly,” Graham said of adjusting to the ever-evolving nature of the JPO. "You must be okay with messing up a little bit. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Be adaptable and humble."
"No matter how new you are to the JPO or even the government," she added, "your voice matters. Someone with fresh eyes will see things differently and could provide the solution to an ongoing problem. It is everyone's different experiences that come together to make the program work."
| Date Taken: | 08.15.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 08.16.2022 10:11 |
| Story ID: | 427276 |
| Location: | ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, US |
| Hometown: | COURTENAY, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CA |
| Web Views: | 353 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, F-35 Logistics: Puzzle Solving is the Daily Challenge, by Diana Devaney, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
