NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. --  In recognition for taking a cost-wise approach to increasing warfighter readiness, NAVAIR Commander Vice Adm. David Dunaway presented a Commander’s Award to the Integrated Logistics Support Management System (ILSMS) Integrated Product Team (IPT) during a ceremony here June 17.

The awards, which are the highest given to the command, celebrate technical, business and leadership excellence in support of NAVAIR’s three focus areas: increase speed to the fleet, consistently deliver integrated and interoperable warfighting capabilities, and improved affordability. Nine awards were given, out of 52 nominations.

Led by Audie Dennis, the ILSM IPT, who won the award in the Logistics and Industrial Operation category, took a three-pronged, structured approach in supporting all the naval aviation program teams in their efforts to increase readiness and reduce costs: build a powerful data analysis tool, create a standardized data analysis triage process, and ensure proficient data analysts were performing program team readiness analysis.

NAVAIR’s Aviation Readiness and Resource Analysis Department (AIR 6.8) leadership created the tool as an affordable solution to the program teams’ long-standing desire to have a powerful, standardized readiness analysis tool that would give analysts the ability to accomplish their data analysis in a fraction of the time it had normally taken.

The tool consolidates several common databases into one, providing type/model/series (T/M/S) program teams with quick and accurate data analysis into one screen shot.  What used to take an analyst several weeks of data gathering can now be accomplished in minutes.  By using the ILSMS tool and a concise data triage methodology called Logistics Assessment, analysts can now quickly identify readiness and cost degraders affecting the effective operation of the weapon system and then apply data-driven courses of action to resolve the deficiencies.

The group relied heavily on the various T/M/S program teams when creating the tool.

“Before any programming of took place, the ILSMS IPT spent month querying various program teams as to the analysis capabilities that they wanted to see in the tool,” said ILSMS program manager Michael Berkin. “The result is a high correlation between the tool's capability and the requirements of the actual users.”

Designing the tool was only part of the equation. The group also had to train and certify specific analysts and logistics teams supporting each T/M/S platform.

“To date, more than 1,000 Sailors, Marines, government civilians and contractors use the tool and have received training in the use of the ILSMS tool and the Logistics Assessment process,” Dennis said. ILSMS instructors provide monthly training in the tool’s navigation and analysis techniques, cost and readiness calculation, and standardized data triage. Training has been held both locally at the Pax River campus and at each of the key Navy and Marine Corps sites on both coasts.

While team members expressed excitement about winning the award, they credit educating others as one of the key factors to the team’s accomplishments.

“We have been particularly successful because of our dedication to customer service,” Berkin said. “Any future enhancements to the tool are based on prioritized functional requirements that are being gleaned from the actual users.”  The IPT is currently programming the ILSMS tool to a web-based environment, which will allow for far greater speed and capacity in the tool.