Logistics Support Systems: A new name for a new future

The sustainment market for defense customers is changing and growing rapidly. According to today's projections, there's about $200 billion in untapped business for providing the products and services that help customers use the systems needed to execute their missions.

Boeing, through its newly named Logistics Support Systems business, is making key changes to prepare for emerging opportunities. Pat Finneran, vice president and general manager of Logistics Support Systems, discussed the changing market and how Boeing is responding.

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Getting in sync

Integrated Defense Systems is adopting common tools and processes throughout the organization. These changes all have one main goal—making Boeing more competitive. IDS Engineering Vice President John Tracy sat down with Boeing Frontiers to talk about how the change is affecting IDS, IDS Engineering and IDS engineers.

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Room at the top

Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is working to build the skills of its program managers and provide learning opportunities for the next generation of these key leaders through a new Program Management and Independent Review function.

Howard Chambers, named last September as vice president of IDS Program Management and Independent Review, recently spent a few minutes with Boeing Frontiers to discuss the organization's creation, challenges and benefits.

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Share the power

Future Space Shuttle crews will enjoy extended visits to the International Space Station thanks to an upgrade that will connect docked shuttles to the ISS electrical power system. The modification will allow the shuttles to stay on orbit longer, provide additional time for science and extravehicular activities, and permit astronauts to unload additional cargo. More work will get done on each mission.

The Station-Shuttle Power Transfer System (SSPTS) allows the ISS to supplement the shuttle's electrical power using electricity generated by ISS solar arrays. This results in a lower consumption of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, components used by the shuttle's fuel cells for making electricity. The power transfer system upgrade also will result in a 50 percent increase in the amount of time the orbiter can dock to the station: from about seven days to between nine and 12 days, depending on the mission configuration.

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Waiting for the green light

Imagine you're the proud owner of a new Corvette. Naturally, the first thing you want to do is take that baby out for a spin. Only problem is, the wheels are missing. What are you supposed to do with a Corvette with no wheels?

That's essentially the same question Boeing's Florida Operations employees working at the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) faced. After the Space Shuttle program was put on hold after the Space Shuttle Columbia accident, awaiting the return to flight feels as if someone had taken the wheels off of their expensive new car.

For almost three years, the SSPF has functioned as a jam-packed garage for the remaining International Space Station (ISS) elements while waiting for the Space Shuttle to return to flight.

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Fast work for a big request

When Boeing Air & Missile Defense Systems employees asked U.S. air defense soldiers recently returned from Iraq what could be done to enhance the capability of Avenger fire units, the Boeing team listened. And then they took action.

In partnership with the U.S. Army, Boeing designed a modification to its Avenger short-range air defense weapon system that would not only increase the system's firepower but also make its ground-support capabilities more relevant in today's urban battlefield. And, the team did it in a matter of weeks.

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Center stage

An unmanned aerial vehicle and AH-64 Apache attack helicopter take off from the desert near Mesa, Ariz., as a team of Boeing engineers and customers in St. Louis relays coordinates and participates in a maneuver simulation in Huntington Beach, Calif. Another team in a proprietary location is busy observing related hardware and computer systems to ensure the simulated combat mission is successful.

This scenario isn't just wishful thinking. The recently expanded Modeling, Simulation and Analysis Center (MSAC) at Boeing Rotorcraft Systems in Philadelphia is helping to make this vision a reality.

On May 16, Boeing, U.S. Army and local political leaders dedicated the new $4.5 million MSAC expansion, further augmenting the company's portfolio of network centric–enabled facilities.

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Reaching out

The Analysis, Modeling and Simulation team solved the problem of being at multiple places at the same time with the inauguration of the first two Boeing Integration Center–Distributed Environments (BIC-DEs). Opened May 24 at the Hampton and Norfolk, Va., Boeing Field Offices, BIC-DEs are multiscreen portals capable of receiving content originating from other Boeing modeling and simulation laboratories.

Designed to bring the capabilities of the Boeing modeling and simulation network closer to Integrated Defense Systems' military customers, BIC-DEs offer a more convenient place for customers to collaborate with Boeing engineers. Their dispersed locations also better emulate the way customers actually fight, acting as dissimilar nodes sharing information via mobile, ad hoc networks.

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