- Many military contracts include arrangements that do not allow the American army to repair its own equipment
- This can change thanks to a new transformation strategy
- Republicans and Democrats have argued for the right of compensation
Surprisingly, as part of the contracts for the past supply, the US military has not always held the right to repair its own equipment – but the Democrats and the Republicans agree that this must now change.
The American army secretary, Dan Driscoll and General Randy George, chief of staff of the US military, have published an announcement confirming a “complete transformation strategy”, which “will re-examine all the requirements and eliminate the useless, will proudly prioritize combat training to ensure the contribution directly to strategic objectives.”
The strategy, named army transformation initiative, has three sides; “Provide critical war -fighting capacities, optimize our strength structure and eliminate obsolete waste and programs.”
A point of discord
This change is part of a broader effort implemented by the current defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who published a memo encouraging the United States to “transform at an accelerated pace by deactivating the outdated, redundant and ineffective programs, as well as the restructuring of the headquarters and the acquisition systems”.
Hegseth urges the American army to “identify and propose changes to the contract for the right to repair the provisions where intellectual property constraints limit the army’s capacity to carry out maintenance and access appropriate maintenance tools, software and technical data – while preserving the intellectual capital of the American industry”, as well as to “seek the right to repair the provisions in all existing contracts and provisions are included in all new contracts.
Companies with government contracts such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing often use expensive equipment and installers to repair and serve broken parts, but this initiative would allow military professionals to print 3D spare parts in the field and install them more expensive and quickly.
The register describes an appointment hearing in which senator Elizabeth Warren gave an example of the army needing a new security clip coverage, which the contractual supplier cited $ 20 per clip and months in manufacturing time.
“Now, fortunately, the army had succeeded in maintaining the right to repair this contract and was able to print in 3D the part in less than an hour for a total cost of 16 cents,” confirmed Warren.
