Lockheed Martin Nets Navy Support Deal

By Nick Wakeman, Staff Writer


APRIL 19 ? Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda, Md., has nabbed a $142 million contract to support the logistics operations of the Navy's Consolidated Automated Support System.


The contract is part of an agreement between the Naval Air Systems Command and the Naval Inventory Control Point to combine resources maintained under separate contracts. The agreement will reduce inventory, decrease sustainment costs and improve the speed with which assets are repaired and returned to service.


The contract has incentive payments for Lockheed Martin that are tied to improved reliability of repairable components for the Consolidated Automated Support System stations around the globe.


"The Lockheed Martin-U.S. Navy team estimates the CASS Support Pool reduces the time a broken part spends in the repair cycle by 75 percent," said Lockheed Martin Information Systems President John Hallal.


"This form of inventory management and dependability incentives ensures that reliable parts are where we need them, when we need them," said Marie Greening, NAVAIR program manager for logistics support.


CASS, the world's largest automated test equipment program, eliminates more than 25 unique testers on board aircraft carriers. With more than 440 fielded systems, CASS has saved the Navy an estimated $1 billion, and the Navy projects savings in excess of $3 billion over the next 10 years, according to Navy officials.


The system provides general-purpose analog and digital test capabilities, extremely high radio frequency stimulus and measurement capabilities and electro-optical test functions.