The Air Force Mission Capability Rate Challenge: Where Life Cycle Management Meets Systemic Analytics

Air Force Mission Capability Rates—A Bad Situation Only Getting Worse

As reported by Air & Space Forces Magazine, “aircraft readiness declined across the Air Force fleet in 2024, dropping to its lowest level in at least a decade and perhaps 20 years.” By any measure, this is concerning. Certainly, there are a multitude of reasons—tired iron, diminishing manufacturing sources, required maintenance versus required modernization, operational demands, etc. Regardless, the renewed emphasis on war-fighting capability and unremitting near-peer challenges afford neither the time nor luxury of waiting for complete re-capitalization.

The mission capability rate steady slide must be arrested and recovered. The good news is the Air Force has been here before and can work its way out of it. Acquisition life cycle management needs to play its role in turning over every rock and employing every innovation, and to do so from an analytically based, data-driven standpoint. To the extent the approaches outlined below are being pursued in earnest—good. To the extent they are being applied systematically at the portfolio and enterprise level—all the better. Truly, the angel, and not the devil, is in the details.

Supply Chain Management

A systemic analysis of supply chain impediments requires focused analytic capability to pinpoint true supply drivers that have a quantified, measurable effect on mission capability rate. In effect, a cascading Pareto analysis of every supply status for every source of supply is required. A notional analytic framework “work breakdown structure” is illustrated in the diagram below.

An even more perhaps innovative approach to managing the supply chain of mission-critical parts is making serious investments in advanced manufacturing capability. In essence, fielding this capability hacks traditional supply chain processes which can be less than responsive to aging aircraft with significant diminishing manufacturing source issues or low-density, high-demand fleets. Point-of-need, enterprise-level manufacturing capability can and should be constituted at key bases and depots to shorten transit time.

Sustaining Engineering

Sustaining engineering activities play a vital role in improving aircraft availability by addressing equipment issues that arise during the operational lifecycle, and include continuous monitoring, root cause analysis of failures, and implementation of engineering changes to enhance reliability and maintainability. A systematic analysis of maintenance data and operational feedback is required to identify trends and issues that impact downtime, which can lead to the development of technical solutions, integration of newer technologies to extend the aircraft’s service life, and ensure aircraft remain mission-ready, safe, and cost-effective to operate.

Mission capability rates are critically influenced by both reliability and maintainability. High reliability ensures aircraft systems and components function correctly over time without unexpected failures, reducing the frequency of unplanned maintenance. Maintainability addresses how quickly and effectively aircraft can be repaired or serviced when equipment failures do occur or preventative maintenance is required. To improve reliability and maintainability, several key metrics must be analyzed as shown in the figure below.

Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) is a typical indicator of reliability, measuring the average operational time between system or component failures. Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) is a typical measure of maintainability, reflecting average time to diagnose and fix issues. Other potentially more important metrics include Aborts and Code 3 Breaks that measure failure rates, and Maintenance Man-Hours per Flight Hour (MMH/FH) that reveals the labor intensity required to keep the aircraft operational. Tracking and analyzing these metrics aids engineers to identify problem areas for improvements and for implementing targeted interventions that improve the overall operational readiness of military aircraft. Quality data is needed to drill down to find root causes and target the problematic subsystems and components, yet can be elusive in current maintenance information systems.

Depot-Level Maintenance & Required Modernization

Aging fleets face two major forces moving in opposite directions: increasing required maintenance tasks versus demands for greater operational availability and capability. More tasks, often more airframe intensive requiring more time and resources, are added on top of an already sizeable package that strains depot throughput capacity. Add to this aircraft modification requirements to keep pace with required modernization and you have a perfect storm of irresistible forces and immovable objects.

Navigating the storm requires heavy reliance on Lean Six Sigma and process modeling to optimize depot throughput. As management “flavor of the month” approaches come into and out of vogue, Lean Six Sigma is the answer to simultaneously improving product quality while increasing process efficiency and effectiveness. The approach is rigorous, requiring detailed data collection of specialties and man-hours applied to each task, workspace constraints, and leading and lagging tasks for every depot maintenance and modification activity. It also requires some degree of modeling, as the notional model schematic below illustrates, to address the complexity yet yield an informative exploration of the solution trade space. That said, such an analytical investment is necessary for a quality decision equal in rigor.

Conclusion

A multi-faceted problem such as declining mission capability rates arguably requires a multi-faceted solution. The areas cited above each attack the problem from a different angle and result in a holistic solution. All require analytic rigor—an investment in time, talent, and resources that is essential to the solution. Acquisition professionals at every leadership level should shoulder this investment and apply its benefits at every level to create mission capability rate recovery plans at the level—program, portfolio, or enterprise—of greatest synergy and leverage. Arresting the slide demands it.

About the Authors

Brian Waechter, Senior Associate

Brian Waechter, Colonel, USAF (Ret), has over 35 years of experience as a senior acquisition officer, defense industry vice president and business unit leader, and consultant. During his career, Brian has managed multiple large-scale portfolios spanning both US and international programs across the acquisition lifecycle. He has held key portfolio management positions including vice president and general manager, M7 Aerospace – Government Integrated Services; executive vice president, Interactive Process Technology Associates; and system program director, Air Force Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS).

To learn more about Brian, visit his expert profile here.

Jeff Fath, Senior Associate

Jeff Fath is a nationally recognized authority on advanced aircraft survivability technologies with over 30 years of experience serving in various capacities across the Department of Defense (DoD). He has specialized expertise in low observables (LO), including signature reduction technologies, specifications, signature diagnostic and specification compliance measurements, LO materials, and LO system reliability, maintainability, and supportability. Mr. Fath is an expert in the management of special access programs (SAP) and strategic planning of major defense acquisition programs.

To learn more about Jeff, visit his expert profile here.