Securing the Supply Chain

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Stephen Gray: 

All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Can you hear me? Excellent, excellent. Welcome to the most important panel of the day. All right. We are well aware up here that we stand between you and happy hour, but at the same time, talk a little bit about supply chains. And if you’re in that business, or you know about them, it’s it is a topic. And not only is it a topic, but it’s important. I don’t know how many folks in the room here were in the room for the last panel. It was a panel called countering enemy kill webs, supply chain management came up in that discussion as well, and a lot of the jargon, a lot of things they were talking about are the same words that we use long lead time, right? Communications go faster, partnering with industry. These are all things that were part of that discussion, even though it was a totally different topic. So the concepts of supply chain management apply in a lot of different areas. I think you’ll find what we have for you today very informative. I’ve got a great panel here. I’m going to go ahead and introduce them, and as I introduce folks. I’ll just have some tell us a little bit about what you do. So immediately to my left, I’ve got Mr. Lou Ruscetta, formerly Colonel Lou or Seta. He is the Director of Strategic Development for virtual lit sticks. It’s a mission focused AI company, and their specialty is kind of helping us grow out of the cyber realm and into enterprise solution. So, Lou, just a little bit about what you do with Virtualitics. Yeah, thanks, Steve.

Col. Louis Ruscetta, USAF (Ret.):

So, yeah. So I retired as the B 52 program director about a year and a half ago with with Virtualitics, we have a number of AI capabilities that we have fielded within the Air Force, through various Air Force and Space Force. And really what my role is, is looking at what these capabilities are, and how do we grow and build into an enterprise solution, so we get away from one offs within a customer and try to build into, you know, how can the Air Force and the DoD utilize us more from a from a long term standpoint, and into their daily operations.

Stephen Gray: 

Excellent, excellent. Appreciate that, sir. To lose left. We’ve got Mr. Shawn Warren. He is the vice president of combat and trainer engines, that department for GE aerospace and defense systems. Shawn, little bit about what you do.

Shawn Warren:

Thank you. So Shawn Warren, Vice President, combat and trainer engines, really, everything that powers the full fight or portfolio across Ge, you know, we’re privileged at GE to have 100 year relationship with the military. Two out of every three fighters and helicopters are powered by a GE product. You know, I think one thing that we like to highlight now is, you know, the GE that many people grew up with no longer exists. We are now a stand alone aerospace business now. I think the beauty of that is it allows us to really focus very specifically on aerospace and defense, and really be laser focused on how we support our customers and the business and as we continue along this transformation, you know, really focused on how we develop our Lean operating model flight deck. You will hear me say that a few times today, which is really a culture of how we think about solving problems, I think, for a business in partnership with our suppliers and our customers. All

Stephen Gray: 

Right, thank you. Shawn’s left, we have Mr. Chris Long serves as Deputy General Manager and vice president space systems for space cyber intelligence systems, line business, General Dynamics Mission Systems, sir, tell us a little bit about what you do.

Chris Long: 

Thank you, Bob so so in my in General Dynamics mission systems, we have a pretty wide variety of capabilities that we participate in and and in space, cyber intelligence, one of the the interesting parts about our business is we do everything from embedded encryption to building 1000s of of encryption products that go into high end assurance, Internet Protocol encryption types of devices, all the way to building payloads in space, ground systems in Japan and Korea. So we have a very, very large set of capabilities that we bring to the table. And so supply chain, you know, is very, very wide for us in terms of the capabilities that we have that we have to participate in.

Stephen Gray:

Excellent appreciate that. So I’m Steve Gray, the director of the 448 Supply Chain Management weighing part of the Air Force Sustainment Center. Anybody here with me? Tough crowd, come on you guys. Thank you. Thank you. So what we do in the 448 is. The managed supply chain for the Air Force for complex aircraft parts. I’ve said this many times already, many times today, we’re the most responsible organization in the Air Force, because when something goes wrong, I find out I’m responsible. Okay, we’re going to go ahead and start questions and very unique panel here all commercial industry, right? So we’re going to get a perspective that we rarely get uniquely as we do these things. So I’m very interested in the feedback we get here, so I’ll ask all panelists. We’ll start with Lou and go and go left from there, there’s a lot of things being done today to help shore up our supply chains. There’s presidential committees all the way down to IPTS, you name it, right? So from your company’s perspective, in the work that you do, what is industry doing to help improve supply chain performance?

Col. Louis Ruscetta, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, thanks, Steve. So I think you know supply chain performance first of all, is a complex problem, right? So when you look at it, and you know, one of the things, especially from a small business stand standpoint, is the understanding of the complexity. So we’re trying to really embed with the customer, customer, understand what are their problem sets, understand truly what that holistic requirement looks like, and how do we look at it from, you know, holistically, not just from a, you know, you know, from supply chain, not from just the maintainers, but also, you know, what are the OEMs doing? What is the need of the supply chain? What’s driving this? You know, is it a reliability issue, or is it a sustainability issue, which are two different things, right? And then we’re also, what I see a lot of industry doing, not just ourselves, is beginning to partner more and trying to look at who are the other ones that can help support us in doing this as we go move forward into working with, you know, bigger government and trying to solve a extremely complex problem that, frankly, I’m not sure there’s one company that can solve it all excellent.

Stephen Gray:

Appreciate that, Shawn.

Shawn Warren:

So I will start with, you know, for us, it starts with our operating model called flight deck, but we start with safety, quality, delivery and cost in that order. It’s how we look at all of the different issues that we have, and really thinking about how we identify constraints, how we problem solve those constraints. And really it creates a culture and a common language that we can use across the board. Think, as Lou was talking about like, this is a complex problem. I think if you’ve been in the industry long enough, you recognize there was a time and we had excess supply and you could kind of come in and just work through and block and tackle your way through issues. But that’s not the environment we live in today. And if I reflect on where we were even a year ago. We were really focused on trying to solve problems, part number by part number, just blocking and tackling our way through, but only making limited progress. And so we made a pivot to say, Well, how do we go partner with the supply base differently to actually go create some more systemic problem solving throughout the industry? So we picked the top 15 suppliers that drove roughly 80% of our delinquency, and we said, All right, well, how do we go deploy resources out at the supply base? So between engineering quality to manufacturing teams, over 500 employees across that 15 supply base, create a playbook for how we go assess those and not just do part number problem solving, but look at business practices. So like order flow down as an example. As we go to some our tier ones, are they actually flowing down the full demand signal down to their subs, and then the subs of those subs, so that they’re looking at capacity. Are they having producibility issues? Are there things we can go do on our side to make working with GE easier? I think it was pretty enlightening for us as we went through and we had a lot of learnings. 10 of those 15 suppliers doubled output within the first six months that we were going to do it. So now we have a great proof of concept of how we can go partner with the supply base to go drive that. And so now as we look at the next two, three years, it’s really about capacity planning, long term understanding their capacity. How we go do that, and how do we scale beyond just the top 15 suppliers we get to the next 3040, 50 suppliers, I think the other place, I think you know, to the extent we can go help drive operations or leverage analytics so engines don’t come off wing, that’s even better, because we can just go remove demand. So for some of our mobility engines, how do we leverage some of our commercial analytics and use that on some of our CFM and other products that actually keeps those products flying better for operations, and we don’t have to get into a constrained supply chain? And I think the last piece, I would say is that it comes down to investments. And how do we invest, both in our shops as well as the supply base from a tooling Stanford and everything else. We announced $150 million of investments last year to go deploy out in the supply chain and go grow capacity. Excellent,

Stephen Gray:

Excellent. Chris.

Chris Long: 

Well, so very similar to some of the approaches that Shawn has talked about, one of the things that we have done is I. Especially in our micro electronics and our electronics area, we have a very deliberate approach of going and working very closely with the with the suppliers. Our supply chain is centralized at the Mission Systems level, and we do have analytics and tools that try to make sure that we’re we’re monitoring all of the suppliers, not only for things that might go into a submarine, but things that might go into a spacecraft. Electronics being particularly difficult in some cases, especially when you’re when you’re looking at making sure that you’re getting them from reliable sources. We do actually work closely with the US government, both Department of Homeland Security, the DNI and with commerce, to make sure that we’re sharing information with them and they’re sharing information with us. That’s pretty much a regular on a regular basis, almost quarterly, in a lot of cases. And then we work closely with industry. I think industry does share a lot more than people would think in terms of of seeing a problem coming along and getting out ahead of it. I know that that’s one of the big things that we do a lot with not only with our teammates, but with our competitors as well.

Stephen Gray:

So, interesting to me that you’re bringing it up, I think people would say, yes, we always want to kind of protect that intellectual property the way we do things. We don’t want to share a lot of information. But in the aspects of supply chain performance, you have to, we’re so dependent on our sub tiers, our customers, it’s absolutely essential. I think now it’s it’s commonplace where you see those conversations going on. So it’s very interesting themes that came across the discussion here with the panel, just the communications, understanding customer, understanding suppliers, right? Understanding where your weaknesses are, very important to all those things. Thank you. So I’m going to go to go to Lou with the next question, analytics came up in the last panel. Like I said, the kill web guys were all talking about analytics and being able to understand weaknesses and things like that. It’s everywhere in our supply chains. So from a Virtualitics perspective, what do you see as the role for advanced analytics, AI ml, type of capabilities and how it applies to supply chains?

Col. Louis Ruscetta, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, so, from and a little bit of how we’re attacking it, but also just bigger, from a thought leadership perspective, there’s so much disparate data systems out there across what I’ll call the sustainment ecosystem, whether it’s in the supply chain, you look from a maintainer standpoint, even from the OEM database of what’s going on with all the different resources out there, and the majority of them don’t talk to each other, and the majority of them just have an insatiable there’s just so much data in there, there’s impossible for anyone to go through it. So what the artificial intelligence capability allows is bringing that holistic capability and bringing all of those disparate systems together and try to formulate what, you know, what I would call from a decision intelligence standpoint of going, what do we need to go and make that best decision within the supply chain, whether it be, you know, we can look out and say, How far out do we need to to look to make funding decisions on how much we need to buy to have an inventory. Where do we is the best place based on operations and expected operations, to pre position the supply chain, the different aspects out there. So artificial intelligence can help do that. And then you even look, from an OEM standpoint of based on what is all of that data, the demand coming in from that customer. How do we operate better? How do we optimize that machine from an OEM or depot, or anything else from optimization to really get get those capabilities back in the field? So, you know, virtually, specifically, as you know, we were lucky enough to go on contract and partner with Air Force Global Strike command to put our capability and feel that to look at operationally, tactically, operationally and strategically, how we use to support that sustainment ecosystem.

Shawn Warren:

Excellent. I’ll open up. I completely agree. I mean, I think when you just think about the supply chain environment we’re in now, it is so important to have clear, accurate, predictable demand signals, and you have a variety of data that is out there, to the extent you can connect all that data is essential. So like one example, I would say, specifically for us. And I see some of my standard error friends here. So I’ll reference the J 85 program we have, but they are overhauling the J 85 engines. We have DLA out ordering parts. We have USAF out ordering parts, and we also are off ordering parts as well. And to the extent that we can actually connect those data systems that allows us to be more predictive, to understand what they’re seeing when engines are coming off wing, and allow us to get ahead of it. And you can imagine trying to go to a supplier and say, Hey, I need you to. We industrialized this JD five part not the fastest thing that’s going to go happen. So we really got to find ways to get ahead of it. So we’ve been doing a digital pilot to take all of that data leverage AI to go predict what those demands are, and that’s been critical to some of the turnaround we’ve seen in getting better material practices on the J 85 program. And how are we going to continue to build on that and look for other platforms that we could go focus on excellent

Chris Long: 

I would say we’re also looking at some things. For example, predictive analysis is one that I think everybody is has kind of figured out, inventory control, those kinds of things. We’ve also started looking at, can we do automated visual inspection, you know, we, we’ve historically had for, you know, some of the higher reliability parts they come in, they have to be inspected. So, can you, can you, can you make that a little bit more AI based? And then from that, start getting a little bit more predictive. If you start seeing something that’s starting to go go south on you a little bit sooner than then maybe you would normally show up in a normal test or a visual inspection. So that’s just one of those cases where we’re looking at, how do we, you know, drive that, that cost curve down a little bit

Stephen Gray:

Well, the digital engineering involved there, right? Yeah. And I think that

Chris Long: 

Yeah. And I think that then goes back to when you start looking at, how do you do a design? You know, historically, you give an engineer a bag of parts, and they say, I don’t want that part. I want this special part over here. I mean, it’s just our nature.

Stephen Gray:

See, it isn’t so sorry.

Chris Long: 

But I think also, if you start explaining to them that that you’re you’re starting to see design techniques and things that that may or may not be testable, or as as you know, starting to get earlier failures. Print wired circuit boards, you know, continue to get much more dense and and how are those things going to go work in the future? I think those are some of the other things that we’re doing with with the analytics. Excellent,

Stephen Gray:

Chris. I’m going to stay with you for the next question, if that’s okay. We talk about space like Space Force, space things, supply chain issues related to developing and producing space hardware, anything unique from your perspective, or challenges that you would want to address?

Chris Long: 

Yeah, I think that the biggest challenge in in the space domain is that it has a unique set of requirements. Almost all of that has to do, usually with radiation. Sometimes it’s temperature, sometimes it’s mechanical, but certainly my friends here building engines, and those things have some very strict mechanical requirements, but most of the time with radiation and what happens on the electronic side of that is that you don’t get as many manufacturers really wanting to get into the business. And so historically, now that’s changing a little bit, Steve, because as we see launch tempo coming up, and a lot more constellations coming up. You see more people getting a little bit more excited about having some of the semiconductor lines that support space. But historically, that’s been the problem, that you just don’t have enough of the supply base. So you have to be a little bit more predictive. You have to do lot buys. You have to have long term agreements, because, you know, the design cycles are so long in some of these, these processes. So it is a, you know, certainly 10 years ago, I would be telling you that it’s probably the number one thing that we worry about. It’s probably number two or three on the list now, because we are getting a little bit more of that supply chain. But it is a function of the orbit, and, and, and how you actually, you know the length of the satellite that you want it to last.

Stephen Gray:

Interesting. I thought transportation would come up on it. That’s the first thing I think about how you get it up there. All right. Okay, Shawn, I’m going to go to the to you next, if I could, in terms of sharing information and appropriate feedback between industry and the government, what areas you think should be addressed or could be improved?

Shawn Warren:

Yeah, when you said, be fully transparent when we talk about some of these questions, but I think the first thing that comes to mind is really understanding the various scenarios that the government is going through and how you’re thinking about demands. And I sound like a broken record, but those clear and predictable demand signals, I think when I go out to the supply base, is probably the biggest pushback I get from suppliers. Is the kind of yo yo effect of demand signals, to the extent that that is actually predictable, and we can allow people to go invest and create capacity and know that the work is going to come. I would say that is first and foremost. I think the other thing is, you know, as a company like GE, who’s got commercial and military applications, to the extent we can leverage. Commercial practices, commercial parts, some of those operations, I think that allows us to create a little more speed in the process. Now that’s a different way of doing business, and so we’ve had success over the years creating different contract vehicles around Cois and other projects that have allowed us to move quickly at times and speed up the acquisition process. But I think that’s another place where I think industry and government continue to go evolve and find ways to go move faster and really lean in.

Stephen Gray:

So for our panelists, and also for Shawn as well, historically, we write requirements that are very rigid, firm, well detailed and somewhat surrounded by this barrier. Do exactly this? Does outcome based thinking and language play a part in this to the degree that we can loosen how to go about doing something?

Shawn Warren:

Look, I would say just a couple of thoughts off my head, but one, I think, to the extent we really partner and involve industry and the RFIs and the RFPs, that we can help shape and collaborate on what those requirements are and sort of operate in that design space, I think that goes a long way. And then I think Chris said it a second ago, but as we think about digital engineering, model based systems engineering, that ability to go really collaboratively, go do that. So for our XA 102 engine, we just completed the detailed design review. We did that 100% digitally so it wasn’t big mounds of paper documents. It was all in the models with the customer going through it. I think that’s another place where you get to an outcome focus, you iterate a whole lot faster, and allows us to really go move with speed. I think we’ve got the early parts of that, and now it becomes a question of, how do we continue to scale that and grow that and make that the future of the way we work together?

Stephen Gray:

Excellent. All right. Thank you.

Col. Louis Ruscetta, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, I think on that one too, Steve. So you know, especially when you’re looking at and coming from both industry side and my former government side, right? As boat director, it’s that partnership, and having that partnership with, you know, that industry, government partnership, which is critical, you know, both sides. You know government doesn’t actually succeed unless industry succeeds in almost every single case, right? So you know, in making sure that not just the requirements are written to where, hey, you know, they can be performed. It shouldn’t be easy. It should be challenging, because we need to make sure we are meeting the very, you know, the government should, it is and should be a very demanding customer. But also, you know, it’s, it’s that trust, right? It’s that trust in the partnership, and then when it comes to what we’re delivering, right? It’s that trust in the delivery of that capability. So, you know, like, you know, in, for example, in in our deliverable, in our integrated readiness optimization for maintenance, you know, we actually show, hey, here’s how accurate the predictions are. Right? We give that to the government. The government has that real time at the same instance that we do right. It’s that, it’s that trust, that we all know. All right, what do we need to work on that? Because it’s always going to be a an evolving solution to go work on this to better and improve the capability.

Stephen Gray:

Thank you. All right, for next one, I’ll go back to Chris. From a General Dynamics, mission systems perspective, and I would ask the other panelists to also join in here. But secure supply chains, you have to mitigate risk, and from your perspective in the work that you do, how is your company going about mitigating risk and supply chains?

Chris Long:

Well again, so it’s it’s a very it’s one of those things that’s pretty complex, as as I think Lou said earlier, one of the things that I think we have really formed as a foundation is that, you know, the old days of picking up a phone or doing an order by text or appeal for in some of those cases, we have really driven to secure networks, not only with our internal but our suppliers. You know, where do you look at there’s a threat? Well, there’s easily a threat by just having somebody, you know, you can have the most secure set of parts, but somebody can listen in on a phone call or on a fax and get into your network and and get into your supply chain. So that’s one of those, right? And getting that mentality up and down the supply chain is one thing we’re doing. We are looking at ways to implement AI. And I know everybody says that, and so I think everybody’s going to be doing the analytics. It’s the question of not just in terms of inspection. But can you, can you go in and drive that down to your lower level suppliers? And that’s a function too. Of the types of products that we build, some are going to be more aggressive than others. Some, you know, you know, the cost of of failure is probably not quite as high as as some of the others that you know, in terms of, you know, certainly. Our encryption devices, you know, we have to be just rock solid in terms of requirements and knowing the pedigree of everything down to the, you know, to the last resistor, maybe less or so on some of our radio products. Although you still have to have that same level of control, it’s just a function of what the threat is. So we look at that. We look at the, you know, what is the what is the concern? What is the effect going to be? And then, how fast do we have to respond to it? But that’s, you know, that’s one of the things. And then, and then the interaction with the with the suppliers, you know, very similar what Shawn said in terms of going out to the suppliers. We have really had to do that. And that’s not just been because of COVID. I mean, you know, we I think it’s really gone back to you have to make sure you’re not getting counterfeit parts, but you have to make sure you’re helping those, those companies that are, that are critical in the in the supply chain, and then figuring out what you really need in terms of how many companies, I think you’re going to see that, that the number of suppliers is going to go down, because there will be an inherent cost in terms of making sure that that they have all of those processes and procedures in place, so that we can then embed ourselves with them and and help. Now, I think our suppliers would say, we help. They might not, but if there’s any of them out here that I you know, they can raise their hand and say, they we help. But, you know, that’s, that’s really, that’s really our intent is not to go in and be an oversight, but to figure out how we can work collaboratively with them. And we’re doing that, in many cases,

Stephen Gray:

Kind of an assured supply chain thing, right from a technical counterfeit all of it, right? Anybody else would thought on that?

Shawn Warren:

Yeah. I mean, I think the word that immediately came to mind was trust, and that’s sort of a full all the way through the dollar chain. But one trust between us and the government, knowing that there’s a real good demand signal, and even if there is a hey, we want you to build X amount of capacity, we have pretty high confidence of what the fan of outcomes is. So we understand we’re not throwing money away, but we were making very informed decisions. The other side of that, I think, is Chris highlighted. It’s also trust now back through the supply base and whether it’s AI or not, but it’s how we connect the data and really get to all of the leading indicators that tell us whether or not we may have an issue, right? So are the suppliers actually allowing us to go in and see their whip across any of the parts that we’re manufacturing, right? So that we only have one source of truth. It’s not someone picking up a phone call or passing spreadsheets back and forth, but it’s Hey, we all go into one system. We see the web, and if we have an issue, we can collaboratively go work on that. It’s things like tooling and tooling help, right? You know that oftentimes is a sort of IP at the supply base, but having full transparency around tool health so we know when we can need to go in and help them. So I think, but that level of trust that we need to have across the industry that allows us to get ahead of that risk and know that we could kind of work collaboratively, go problem solve those issues before you know they bite us.

Col. Louis Ruscetta, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah. I mean, when I look at supply chain risk, it’s having the right part at the right place, at the right time, right and it has to be a level of all three of those. And you can’t be reactive. You have to be proactive in order to be successful in making sure that you can mitigate supply chain risk. So having tools that can look ahead and that the government at the user trusts, and not just being used by the user, but also right, as we talked about, the OEMs as well, so down the entire supply chain, because they need to have access to that same data so they can start working on the problem three months ahead, six months ahead, because the reactive capability is just not there. So how do you become proactive and become that? I think a lot of industry is trying to do that, and government is definitely trying to do that. So, but that’s the focus, and to me, that’s actually where I think artificial intelligence and machine learning can really support

Stephen Gray:

I’ll just add a point to that, if I could there. You know, traditionally, supply chain organizations funded to a certain level, right? You get a certain amount of product, we try to evaluate, what do we what do we invest in? What can we postpone right until a demand comes in, because likelihood of the demand or the cost of the item is very high? There’s some of these things that are traditional approaches the way we do supply chain management, when you look at it through the mission lens, start to become a risk, right? So not having that low demand part, when I look at it, when I look at my operation through a mission perspective, drives risk to the mission, not necessarily risk to the supply chain. And I think that’s becoming much more apparent as we go through this period where supply chains are just fragile, right, and and disruptions are common, or we’re one tariff away, or one policy change away from losing the ability to get material, something like that, right? So, so I think more and more, we find ourselves trying to look through the mission lens to go, Okay, how do I assure I’ve got everything that’s absolutely necessary and apply to the smart analytics to know where we can take smart risk and it’s less impact to the mission? Very complex. It seems to be the theme through this entire discussion. It’s all very complex. No no simple answers anywhere. Okay? Well, with that as a backdrop, though, our panel is secure supply chain, we’ve talked a lot about resiliency. We’ve talked a lot about requirements and what’s needed. This question might set you up to say yes, I like his answer, but, but I’ll start with Lou. What looks right? What does the right supply chain look like now? And I’ll preface it by years ago, it was very lean supply chain. We pushed all the inventory one direction, right. Very responsive, very agile. There’s a lot of words that are used to describe supply, change. Now, what, from your vantage point, what looks right?

Col. Louis Ruscetta, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, I think so. I’ll use it back in terms right? So the DoD right now, you know, readiness is the number one priority, right, coming out of the out of the department. And to be honest, when I look back, right, whether it was accelerate change or lose, China, China, China. You know, we’ve all been marching down towards operational readiness. So again, having that trust in the supply chain that the users can have what they need to execute their mission. That is what a steady and resilient supply chain is, in my mind. And in order for that, that user has to have trust, and in order for the user to have trust. You know, we as that supply chain ecosystem needs to be able to meet a, you know, a fluctuating demand signal. We need to have the ability to meet, you know, and understand what fluctuating budgets can do, and how do we operate within that so and because, in the end, it’s not a tool that’s going to support that. It’s a commander that’s going to make decisions to, you know, ensure that we are ready and we can fight and operate that next mission. So you know that is from a big picture. That is what’s needed. I think you know we need to make sure that, you know, the supply chain has the tools that give them that, you know, decision intelligence that can support those decisions moving forward, to provide that readiness capability.

Chris Long:

I guess the only thing I would add is, is I think you have to have a reliable supply chain. And some of that is, is we have to make sure that we’re giving them the demand signal appropriately, and, you know, a competent one that continues to, you know, become better and better at what they do. And then finally, trusted. And when I say trust that I don’t mean it in the sense of, do I trust that they’re trying to do the right thing, but that, do we do they have the processes and procedures in place so that we all are confident that something hasn’t been compromised in that whole process. And that’s, I think, one of the things that we worry about. The most, not that we don’t trust a supplier, but they just might not know what has already been implanted into a factory or into their po system that is just sitting there waiting to come out and, and, and, you know, and attack the system. And so that’s one of the things that we think a lot about, is this, how do we make sure that that’s in place as well?

Stephen Gray:

You’ll see and understand weakness, right? Weakness in a supply system. Very clear. Yep. So excellent points by all. So I’m going to open myself up here as a member of the United States government and ask this question. Says, primary suppliers to the Air Force or Space Force supply chain. What can the DoD do differently to help with the work that you do, to better, better meet the requirements that the government has? Are there things that we could change, processes, policy, things like that, that come to mind for you, and I’ve got a blank sheet of paper right here ready to go.

Col. Louis Ruscetta, USAF (Ret.):

Well, I think the first thing in the boat, right is, you know, just very strategically, you know, funding, funding, the requirements, right? And, you know, I think near and dear to everyone’s heart right now is a potential for a year long continuing resolution. So doing away with that and actually funding and, you know, Congress, you know, funding a budget and passing a budget is number one. Beyond that, number two would be, you know, making sure that sustainment continues is really a priority. Sometimes it gets lost. It’s not always as sexy as you know, warheads on foreheads, right? And and I’ve seen that and lived that, but reality is that we’re not going to put a warhead on a forehead if we’re not going to sustain it, whether we’re not going to sustain the delivery system, we’re not going to sustain so making sure that sustainment is a priority so we can put the resources needed to, you know, develop and deliver tools for the that entire ecosystem.

Stephen Gray:

Excellent. Thank you.

Shawn Warren:

Yeah. I mean, I think without trying to sound like a broken record, but that predictable demand signal is so key because it really drives all the other decisions we make, even when we think about what the supply base wants to look like, how do you go get second sources? Do you know that volume is there? How do we think about cost structure? So really, to the extent we have a very predictable demand signal, I think that’s key. I think the other thing that comes to mind is a bit of a pivot, right? But we’ve spent a lot of time investing in technology and developed these cool technologies, but actually pushing that all the way through. So we actually feel that capability. It doesn’t do the warfighter any good if it’s sitting on a shelf, but I think that also creates an opportunity for us to grow the supply base and bring even more new players into the fold, right? So to the extent we actually follow through, and it’s not technology for technology’s sake, but we actually feel those capabilities. I think it also creates an opportunity for us to expand the supply base.

Chris Long:

Excellent. So So I agree with, with with with them, very much on that. I think the one thing that I’ve thought a lot about, or at least at the peaks parts level and building it up is, is there a way to have a government wide database? You know, we do multi level security, where people can come in and see only what they’re allowed to see about a certain level of data. How can we do that with industry, where industry, each company, can come in securely, put their concerns into into a database and with with the analytics and what we’re learning, be able to then get ahead and simply say, Look, we don’t know exactly what GE is is doing, but they’ve flagged that there might be a problem. And so thank you for doing that, and now we can go and look at that a little bit more in a little bit more detail. It may or may not be applicable to us, but there are systems in place where you can still obfuscate the intellectual property of each company, but able to have some level of sharing at a macro level. And I think that’s something that the DOD and the IC could work on together.

Stephen Gray:

Excellent. Appreciate that. I’m going to add one. We need to deregulate the supply chain. You guys heard me say it, if you go to a panel or a conference like this, or just way too many rules and regulations that end up being constraints on all of us, right? When you get a PR package for me or a contract, that’s all the things that you have to meet, some of it’s good, right? So that’s good. It’s necessary time to re look at some of that and just kind of lighten the regulation, and particularly concentrate on those areas that allow us some agility and some freedom to move and freedom to collaborate, and freedom to exchange information and data without worrying about are we breaking the rule? So I. Excellent comments and feedback from everyone today on your questions. Really quick. We’ve only got a couple minutes left, but I’ll go through the panel one more time. I’ll start with Chris and work my way back. Just final comments for the for the audience here, any final thoughts on supply chains or a message that you would like to leave?

Chris Long: 

I guess the one thing is, is, you know, we have to think of supply chain from the very beginning to the very end. And how are we, you know, we were in a different time, where than we were even 20 or 30 years ago, with the cyber attacks and the, you know, you just look at how a supply chain can be disrupted at just the, you know, just the very basic beginning of a capacitor problem in one company. Can we’ve seen this trickle down to everything. So how do we think about that? You know, at the very basic level?

Shawn Warren:

Thank you. Think the only thing I would say is, you know, this is a complex problem, and it is a team sport, right? And I think the only way we’re really going to turn this around is the full collaboration and the open minded thought that, you know, all of some of the ideas we talked about today. But how do we think differently about how we go do this and not be wed to the ways we worked in the past?

Col. Louis Ruscetta, USAF (Ret.):

Excellent. You know, every day, every weapon system is getting older, and, you know, old iron fails in new ways. I’ve learned that the hard way, and everything else. So, you know, understanding that, and you know, being able to partner with industry and try to solve that again. Because in the end, this is we have a supply chain, we have a sustainment organization, so we can, so we can operate a mission, and we can be effective. So, and you know, we’ve got to work within resources to be efficient? So looking at that holistic approach to understand, how do we solve very complex problems so we can, in the end, perform the mission that we’re asked to do by our leaders?

Stephen Gray:

Excellent. Thank you. Hey for everybody in the audience, I want to say thank you to AFA for giving us the opportunity to talk about supply chains today. I still think, and I will argue it to until I’m fired, this is the most important topic affecting the Air Force and all of our organizations right now, how do we tighten up our supply chains to make sure we have assured secure and resilient supply chains to support those missions? Thanks to our panel members, Lou, Shawn and Chris for sharing your expertise and your thoughts and your experiences within your different sectors and companies on supply chains, and I appreciate your time, and thanks for for making it a great panel, a hand, a round of applause.