Comprehensive Action Plan to Reduce Costs

The F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) has awarded a $1.4 billion contract to the Lockheed Martin-led industry team to fund sustainment for the current fleet and to support the future fleet of 3,000+ aircraft. he 2018 annualised sustainment contract will cover sustainment services through April 30, 2019. Activities include air system maintenance; pilot and maintainer training; depot activation; sustaining engineering; Automatic Logistics Information System (ALIS) support, data analytics and predictive health management; supply chain logistics and more.

Lockheed Martin is implementing comprehensive actions to improve readiness and reduce industry costs, to include:

• Expanding the networked global supply chain to improve component repair capacity, throughput and velocity.
• Investing in enhanced diagnostics and data analytics to improve flightline readiness and drive down costs.
• Pre-funding spares buys and synchronising production and sustainment component orders to achieve volume cost reductions and improve parts availability.

More than 280 F-35 aircraft have been delivered and are now operating from 15 bases around the globe. More than 580 pilots and 5,600 maintainers have been trained and the F-35 fleet has logged more than 130,000 cumulative flight hours. The F-35 weapons system reliability continues to improve, and newer aircraft are averaging greater than 60% availability, with some operational squadrons consistently at or above 70% availability.

“This contract is critical to ensuring the transformational F-35s are mission ready to support our men and women in uniform,” commented the company’s Vice President of F-35 Global Sustainment, Bridget Lauderdale. “We are taking aggressive actions to improve F-35 aircraft availability and reduce sustainment costs. As the sustainment system matures and the size of the operational fleet grows, we are confident we will deliver more capability at less cost than legacy aircraft.”