The aviation logistics system supports worldwide aviation operations with a wide range of resources. It provides services to the operational force along functional lines--maintenance, supply, transportation, procurement, support planning, and many subordinate services. It is involved in every phase of the life cycle of a weapon system and in every facet of aviation operations. In the face of this complexity, there is a need for enhanced integration across resource classes, functions, and weapon systems to ensure that the aviation logistics system delivers maximal peacetime readiness and combat sustainability with a specified level of resources. Moreover, resource allocations need to be consistent with the levels of readiness and sustainability reflected in the POM. A basic purpose of the PPBS is to allocate the mix of logistics support resources needed to deliver specified levels of readiness and sustainability, and to specify those levels of readiness and sustainability in light of their costs. In this Note, the concept of the PPBS is extended to include budget execution and the day-to-day management of logistics operations because of the need for consistency in execution and management with the other stages of the process.

This Note discusses current stockage policies and computational techniques in naval aviation and argues that the use of a weapon system availability objective function coupled with multi-echelon optimization techniques could result in substantial improvements in system performance at current levels of investment. A demonstration is included that compares the estimated performance of the stockage posture resulting from an emulation of the Navy's current computational methods with that of alternative methods. They Navy's technique of minimizing the sum of holding plus shortage costs subject to a fill rate constraint is shown to be dominated by each of the alternative computational approaches. Additional research and implementation issues are also discussed.

Includes publications previously listed in the supplements to the Index of selected publications of the Rand Corporation (Oct. 1962-Feb. 1963).