Outsourcing Training Expertise

U.S. AND ALLIED SERVICES TURN TO SKILLED CONTRACTORS FOR TRAINING EXPERTISE.

Military training and education programs, both domestically and internationally, are populated by expert contractors who instruct individuals and units in language laboratories, medical clinics and other learning venues. Often, these experts possess prior military service themselves, making them ideal instructors when they return to the military bases they served to impart their lifetime of knowledge.

For example, aviators who have recently retired or separated from the military service rely on their operational currency and airmanship proficiency to help aspiring pilots develop their flying and warfighting skills in simulators. And it is the private sector that often maintains those training devices in a mission-ready status.

Military trainers and educators, like their counterparts in other defense missions, view outsourcing as vehicles to obtain cost savings and other efficiencies.

In addition, defense companies, as well as the U.S. service training commands and headquarters offices, are likely to hire consultants to meet emerging requirements that are not part of their portfolio or competencies. An individual, or company, may be brought aboard in a temporary capacity to provide insight about a customer base or meet other needs.

The goal of competitively outsourcing any function “is to find process efficiencies and cost savings through competition,” said Jennifer Stephens, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Air Force (USAF). USAF seeks out efficiencies by outsourcing training and education for electronics principles, advanced communications systems, acquisition management, aircraft maintenance specialized skills, civilian professional development and other occupational areas.

The major challenge surrounding outsourced training, whether it occurs on the flight line or in the traditional schoolhouse, “is differentiating between a commercial activity that is a good candidate, and a commercial activity that, because of the nature of training, is more effectively performed by military personnel,” Stephens told Military Training Technology. Accession training is one activity that is often studied for outsourcing potential, but continues to function under the guidance of uniformed instructors and other staff.

“Training activities involving brand new Air Force accessions arguably should be performed by military personnel because our new trainees are still learning the ins-and-outs of military service,” Stephens said. “There are not guarantees a contractor or a civilian would be able to convey the same perspective or have some of the same experiences as a military member. That lack of perspective and experience could be a detriment to training.”

Still, USAF and other military services have increasingly outsourced instruction and related supporting services for their flight training programs during the last decade.

“I don’t know of many flight systems where military personnel are providing the tactical training, maintaining simulators or are completing other tasks,” Retired Navy Rear Admiral Fred Lewis, president of the National Training Systems Association, told MT2. “The dominant majority of personnel you will find supporting these systems are private-sector employees,” he said.

Lewis believes that military organizations have a compelling reason to selectively transfer to contractors the dayto- day operation and maintenance of flight simulators, classroom training and other functions. “Outsourcing is a very important way that the Department of Defense can save money,” Lewis added.

Three companies provided MT2 with their insights on how outsourcing and consulting contracts support training for United States and allied air warriors.

E-3 AWACS

The E-3 Sentry is an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, which provides all-weather surveillance, command, control and communications needed by commanders of the United States, NATO and other allied air defense forces.

L-3 Communications’ Link Simulation and Training holds 15-year USAF contract worth about $160 million for the service’s E-3 Contractor Training and Simulation Services program. That program was the first service aircrew training system to use the commercial training services approach, said David Williams, Link’s vice president of Training Programs.

As part of this contract, Link built a state-of-the-art training facility located south of Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. The doors for this center opened in August 2002. No longer was the Air Force burdened by directly maintaining an E-3 training facility, Williams added.

The company provides total AWACS aircrew training for the flight crews (pilot, navigator and flight engineer positions) at the 552nd Air Control Wing to a guaranteed level of proficiency. In addition, Link supplies logistics support for two Federal Aviation Administration Level D-equivalent full motion operational flight trainers (OFTs), one flight training device (FTD), and a navigator part task trainer (NPTT).

The OFTs and FTD are contractorowned and the NPTT is government-furnished equipment.

The full range of instruction from Link provided to the E-3 flight crews is completed through classroom instruction, computer-based training, and missions in the training devices. Instructional levels are initial qualification, instructor upgrade, aircraft commander upgrade and continuation training.

Link also supplies a full range of courseware products and services to include courseware design, development and maintenance for all formal courses, continuation training, mission qualification training and weapon systems academic training.

Link’s logistic support includes a total maintenance and supply package consisting of spare parts, a data library, engineering technical data, software documentation and all maintenance functions. Its engineering support provides modifications to training devices to ensure their concurrency with actual E-3 aircraft upgrades.

One successful readiness outcome: E-3 flight crews accomplish all of their training within the flight simulators and have eliminated the need for flight crews to fly the TC-18 training aircraft before transitioning to the operation of an actual E-3 aircraft.

U.K. INNOVATORS

European governments have been creative—and perhaps more innovative—than their U.S. counterpart in their use of outsourcing services, including those for training systems, primarily through supporting outsourced contracts for the Public Private Partnership (PPP) program under the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense (MoD).

The PPP is any collaboration between the government and private- sector companies through which the government seeks to optimize the management skills and financial prowess of the private sector to create a better value for taxpayers.

Thales Group UK provides the flight simulation and synthetic training program called the Integrated Aircrew Synthetic Training Service (FIASTS) to the U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF). The Thales Services division, which includes the company’s simulation activity and military training services segments, handles the contract.

The contract, which may run for more than 13 years, provides synthetic training and maintenance services to the aircrew of nine different RAF aircraft. Thales won the agreement in competition in 2002 under a U.K. MoD PPP procurement initiative.

“Under the terms of the PPP concession, Thales has bought back from the RAF some 20 simulators and 64 part-task trainers, as well as leasing the associated training facilities located at 10 sites throughout the United Kingdom,” Mark Rouson, head of communications for Thales Training and Simulation, told MT2.

Thales uses these assets and additional systems, including a Training Management Information System, to provide about 26,000 hours of training per year, which are charged to the client on a per sortie basis. Thales also offers training to third parties and shares these revenues with the U.K. MoD.

A team of 79 Thales staff members, all whom are former RAF-qualified aircrew instructors, provide the flight instruction.

“They have a deep understanding of the training requirement required to maintain credibility with Operational Conversion Unit students and experienced aircrew alike,” Rouson explained.

To ensure that professional standards and operational currency are maintained, the RAF Standards Evaluation Team assesses the instructors for initial approval and re-certification. Rouson stressed that establishing and maintaining a military ethos throughout the learning environment is incredibly important.

“The main challenges, pre- and post award, included ensuring military ethos was maintained in the outsourced facilities, and ensuring the staff, who had previously been employed by the MoD, understood the advantages of their new status,” Rouson said.

And the outcome has been largely positive for both Thales and the U.K. MoD. While the availability of the training equipment had to be improved, agreed targets have been met and exceeded.

“With the service now mature, the ongoing requirement for continuous improvement within the terms of our agreement with the MoD, and the marketing of third-party training remain the ongoing challenges,” Rouson said.

FIRST WAVE

NATO also embraces outsourcing efforts for training programs. U.S.-based Plexsys Interface Products Inc. based in Camas, Wash., and recognized for its capabilities in E-3 AWACS simulation and computer generated forces modeling, supplied an exercise control mechanism for the NATO Exercise First Warfighter Alliance in a Virtual Environment (WAVE). The services were supplied simultaneously in Canada and the United Kingdom.

The exercise in question was a sevennation, invitation-only event, based on the evolving U.S. Air Force Distributed Mission Operations (DMO) training program. When mature, DMO is envisioned to provide live and virtual training for E-3, F-16, F-15 and other military platforms’ aircrews at disparate global venues.

“First WAVE, was in essence a privately financed initiative, allowing corporations that have a virtual aircraft simulation capability, and are endorsed by their respective NATO participating governments, to participate in a technology demonstration and experiment,” Plexsys spokesman Jamie Boulet told MT2.

In many cases, the sponsoring government reimbursed the efforts of their respective companies. For Plexsys, however, the effort was largely carried out at company expense, Boulet recalled.

First WAVE was conducted under the mantle of the NATO Research and Technology Agency and the NATO Modeling and Simulation Group, with an endorsement from the NATO Studies, Analysis and Simulation Technical panel. The event allowed the alliance to take advantage of existing national virtual simulation training programs.

Boulet acknowledged that a prime contractor, such as Plexsys or another training company, might also turn to outsourcing to obtain competencies not resident in the company’s workforce or other capital holdings.

For example, opportunities for marketing and advertising often present ideal scenarios for outsourcing, Boulet said.

“Graphical arts support is another outsourced function that a small company requires unless the growth of the company over time can support their hiring full time,” Boulet added.

Plexsys also has relied on consultants, on a part-time basis, to bolster its contracting capabilities.

“This is especially true when dealing with Department of Defense contractual matters,” Boulet said. “In this case, we required the services of a former DoD contracting officer in on-going negotiations.”

DEPTH OF EXPERIENCE

As in other segments of the defense industry, training consultants offer the government customer, or the prime contractor, proven performance and competencies in unique skill sets that are not part of the regular employee base.

Consultants for aviation training “can bring experience in government acquisition processes, tactical situations, emergency procedures, and other areas, including intelligence and its red team [opposing force] functions,” said NTSA’s Lewis.

Consultants, such as Dr. Linda Fenty of Global Insights Inc., also provide support to functions related to training. Fenty has been hired for her expertise in strategic planning, organizational development, adult learning and assessments. In addition, large companies like Thales have hired legal and financial consultants to support contract administration in their roles as prime contractors.

And the U.S. training systems industry’s outsourcing and consulting ventures are expected to moderately increase over the next five years—unless existing DoD procurement regulations dramatically change to allow long-term agreements (up to 30 years), similar to the U.K. private finance initiatives, Lewis predicted. ♦

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