Keeping the Army's Equipment Ready to Fight

daily histories, the EDA creates repair records that are used to calculate equipment failure rates and total " broke-to-fix " times as well as " broke-to-fix " process segment times and quality metrics for each echelon of support. By archiving the daily NMC rate, the EDA can be used to view how well equipment performs in demanding operations. Because problems with equipment readiness generally occur during training exercises when equipment is used heavily, the daily NMC rate offers more insight than the monthly averages of readiness that the Army has relied upon in the past. This is because monthly averages combine readiness rates from motor pool idle time and exercise time. The daily NMC rate reveals the turbulence in performance that can be obscured by monthly averages. Figure 1, for example, displays both monthly and daily NMC rates (shown by the horizontal bars and the jagged line, respectively) for one armor battal-ion's tanks from May 1999 until April 2000. The Army Transformation places an increased premium on the Army's ability to efficiently keep its equipment ready to fight. The Army envisions relatively small but highly capable units that will deploy rapidly and then engage immediately in highly mobile operations. Because of the need to keep these units light enough for quick deployment and agile maneuver, their support structures must be lean. Yet these lean support organizations must still be able to repair broken equipment quickly. A unit with many weapon systems unable to fight or move will soon become ineffective and vulnerable. The Army cannot realize this vision with today's weapon systems and support capabilities. Achieving the vision will require dramatic improvement in levels of both equipment supportability (i.e., reliability, maintainability, durability, and commonality) and support process effectiveness and efficiency. Such progress requires a detailed understanding of the factors that affect equipment readiness—both the causes of equipment failure and the contributions of each support process in repairing broken vehicles. To help improve the Army's understanding of equipment readiness, RAND Arroyo Center researchers have developed a management and analysis tool that is the focus of a new report, Diagnosing the Army's Equipment Readiness: The Equipment Downtime Analyzer (EDA). The EDA enables Army managers to better understand and measure the impact of support processes and resources, equipment usage, and failure rates on readiness. Most important in preparing for the future, EDA data can help the Army evaluate equipment readiness performance in situations …