A new approach to contracting is helping to keep costs down on the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme and could lead to a new way of working in the aerospace industry.
"Alpha Acquisition," as the new process is called, began demonstrating its value last month when the US government, competing contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and powerplant suppliers Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce sat down together to agree an open budgeting as they prepare their bids to build the new aircraft for the US Navy, Air Force, Marines and the UK's Royal Navy.
The meeting was hosted by P&W. As propulsion system contractor, P&W must submit an Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) proposal to the US government by 1 August, setting forth its plan for designing, developing and qualifying the propulsion system for the JSF. The contract is worth an estimated $2 billion over the next seven years.
In the past, such a proposal would be prepared largely in secret, with the customer unaware of its elements until it was finally delivered.
"The Alpha process means our customer won't be surprised by anything in our proposal, and many of the customer's questions will have already been answered," says Rick Silva, director of the JSF EMD planning and proposal group. "By bringing key participants together at the outset of the process, Alpha compresses the time it takes to move the project ahead."
Technical performance, manufacturing issues, weight, delivery, staffing and costs will be some of the subjects under discussion as the proposal moves forward.
P&W's contract will be with the Pentagon's Joint Program Office. Propulsion systems will be Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) supplied to the competing contractors.
"P&W is actually submitting two proposals, one for each contractor. Care is taken to be sure proprietary information is protected," Silva says.
"We provide unbiased support for both Boeing and Lockheed. We've physically separated activities related exclusively to one contractor or the other. But where we have common, non-competitive issues to discuss with everyone as we did in our kickoff Alpha meeting, we do so."
Once P&W's proposal has been submitted to the government, the company will respond to questions. A summary of the proposal will go to each Weapon System Contractor. In November, the contractors will wrap the P&W material into their proposals for the JSF EMD phase and the government will award a production contract to the winner in the spring of 2001.
JSF is the largest programme in US military history, with 3,000 aircraft expected to be ordered over the next several decades and another 2,000 sold to America's international allies.
For each contractor, P&W's JSF119 augmented turbofan is being configured in Conventional Takeoff and Landing (CTOL) and Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variants. These have been undergoing extensive ground testing in preparation for flight testing this year. The engines are derivatives of P&W's F119 engine for the USAF F-22 Raptor.
Source: Flight Daily News
