Who we serve / Defense
Most of what a system costs comes after it is delivered.
What is happening
~70%
of a weapon system's life-cycle cost is historically operating and support: parts, maintenance and the people who do it.
US Government Accountability Office4 of 49
aircraft types met their annual mission-capable goal in a majority of years from fiscal 2011 to 2021. Twenty-six met it in none.
GAO-23-106217, Weapon System Sustainment7 programs
were found to be limited in changing how they sustain a system because the government lacked rights to its technical data.
GAO-06-839, Weapons Acquisition
Our view
Equipment in service is maintained by people who rotate every few years, far from the engineers who designed it, with whatever technical data came in the contract. Readiness depends on how fast a new maintainer becomes a good one.
We think the technical manual is the least modernised part of a modern system. The design is a 3D model, the factory builds from it, and then the maintainer is handed a document written by hand from that model and updated late.
The makers who deliver maintenance procedures derived from the design itself, current at every revision, will have equipment that is available more of the time. That is the number their customer is measured on.
Where Machinebase fits
- Maintenance and repair procedures drafted from the system's CAD.
- Each step shown on the 3D model, in a browser, with nothing to install on the device.
- A procedure kept per revision, so it is clear what applied to which configuration.