{"id":135282,"date":"2019-06-12T09:12:27","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T09:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/06\/12\/inventory-management-failures-are-grounding-f-35-jets\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:51:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:51:32","slug":"inventory-management-failures-are-grounding-f-35-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/home\/middle-column\/2019\/06\/12\/inventory-management-failures-are-grounding-f-35-jets\/","title":{"rendered":"Inventory management failures are grounding F-35 jets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Issues with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter\u2019s inventory management system has led to unexpected groundings <\/a>of the fifth-generation jet, and a fix doesn\u2019t appear to be on the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping track of inventory is certainly not an exclusive issue<\/a> to the F-35. The first-ever audit<\/a> of the U.S. Defense Department, completed in late 2018, found a running series of inventory issues, with databases featuring incorrect information that led to the department losing everything from weapon motors to whole buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the F-35 is different because it comes with a software system called ALIS \u2014 or the Autonomic Logistics Information System \u2014 which was designed in part to address specific inventory-tracking challenges identified by the F-35 Joint Program Office in a series of \u201cfor official use only\u201d documents exclusively obtained by Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here for more on the hidden troubles of the F-35.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ALIS is a data system for documenting maintenance, technical manuals and ordering parts, something Rebecca Grant of IRIS Independent Research says lets the F-35 \u201creport its maintenance status like R2-D2 talking to the Millennium Falcon<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut, it\u2019s a big piece of software and the Air Force is trying to update it and shift part of ALIS to new apps,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The logistics issue, which has continued to occur in ALIS version 3.0.1, involves supplies or components that, upon installation, are not actually listed and tracked in ALIS as designed. Those require specific requests to software engineers to have data corrected in the system. While those requests can catch some problems, the issue is not always detected by the user. These requests appear to be coming in on a daily basis, a sign of how widespread the issue is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That issue leads to a second impact: These \u201choles,\u201d as the F-35 Joint Program Office calls them, do not collect data on how parts are used after installation, which means a part might be breaking down from heavy use, yet that part won\u2019t be flagged by ALIS as an at-risk piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, it\u2019s less likely that issues developing from wear and tear or that there\u2019s a lack of replacement parts will be discovered until such an issue has become an acute problem, possibly leading to a grounding of the aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The JPO document hints that part of the issue stems from the fact that F-35 and ALIS manufacturer Lockheed Martin was not using the system at its Fort Worth, Texas, facility, where it would\u2019ve identified information gaps early on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company this year rectified that issue, but has yet to implement a process to check whether a supply is entering the ALIS system at its first point of potential failure: a Lockheed-operated location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, the document also points the finger at Lockheed for not establishing \u201ca single point integrator to manage\u201d these issues, \u201cwhich is a roadblock to better software and data integration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On that front, the company is working on an automated procedure that should smooth things over, according to a source familiar with the program, who said Lockheed was \u201cletting things go out to the field that was hurting\u201d the operational pace, but that the company is \u201cputting automation in place to prevent that\u201d in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPart of the corrective action here is that automation within our computer systems, our software, that says to not send the part out to the fleet if it doesn\u2019t have electronic equipment logs,\u201d the source said. “And then it triggers a flag for us to go figure out why the supplier didn\u2019t send that to us, so we can put it in the ALIS system so when we send the part, they\u2019ve got the part, they\u2019ve got the log, everything works the way it\u2019s supposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greg Ulmer, Lockheed\u2019s vice president and general manager of the company\u2019s F-35 program, told Defense News that the issue is a \u201cmajor focus\u201d for the firm, adding that the use of automation has resulted in better data vetting that has reduced these issues by 50 percent since 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ALIS has been a challenge <\/a>for the F-35 program from its earliest days, and there are no signs<\/a> of it being fixed in the near term. The most recent report from the Pentagon\u2019s test and evaluation office notes that users \u201cmust employ numerous workarounds due to data and functionality deficiencies\u201d; that \u201cmost capabilities function as intended only with a high level of manual effort by ALIS administrators and maintenance personnel\u201d; and that manual workarounds that are \u201ccomplex and time-consuming\u201d are needed to finish tasks designed for automation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same report noted that ALIS issues routinely cause IT challenges when the F-35 arrives at a new operating location, and that those challenges \u201cdelay the unit\u2019s ability to start generating sorties. Often, the timeframe to start flight operation is longer than that with legacy aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t