Elvira N. Loredo

Quality-of-life goods and services for soldiers operating from contingency bases are key for morale and physical and emotional well-being but also a substantial logistics burden, especially in austere theaters, such as Afghanistan, where roads are few and the terrain is difficult. This report evaluates factors that contribute to and detract from soldier quality of life and recommends improvements in the face of a range of constraints.

This document seeks to help the Air Force develop a strategy for managing supply chain risks during weapon system acquisition and sustainment. The authors review the literature on supply chain risk management and report on a series of interviews they conducted within acquisition, sustainment, and commercial communities. They also describe a prototype methodology that the Air Force may wish to use to identify and manage supply chain risks.

This report examines mechanisms, sources, and inter-Service agreements for funding special operations forces (SOF) operations and provides recommendations to reduce the frequency and duration of disputes between the United States Special Operations Command, the Military Departments, and Geographic Combatant Commands over their respective funding responsibilities for SOF.

This report finds parallels in U.S. prisoner and detainee operations in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq: underestimation of the number to be held, hasty scrambling for resources, and inadequate doctrine and policy. Later, attempts to educate and influence prisoners and detainees are often made. The authors recommend that detailed doctrine should be in place prior to detention and that detainees should be surveyed when first detained.

This technical report describes the F-15 programmed depot maintenance (PDM) process as performed at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center (WR-ALC) in FYs 2004-2006. The average WR-ALC F-15 PDM visit runs behind schedule and lasts about four months. Also, PDM can wait a long time for parts; aircraft move through PDM steps out of sequence, with missing parts catching up with the aircraft when they become available, or cannibalize other aircraft.This technical report describes the F-15 programmed depot maintenance (PDM) process as performed at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center (WR-ALC) in FYs 2004-2006, assessing PDM duration and the challenges the process faces.

Aging U.S. Air Force fleets have deterioration problems, resulting in increased maintenance workloads. Programmed depot maintenance (PDM) is significant, requiring 2,000 to 50,000 labor hours and material. RAND developed the PDM Capacity Assessment Tool (PDMCAT), applied it to the KC-135 PDM process, with three alternative forecasts of future workload and two fleet-size scenarios, to inform aircraft availability and resource allocation decisions.