Coast Guard stands-up new logistics center

Coast Guard stands-up new logistics center
By Amy McCullough - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jan 27, 2009 17:18:37 EST

BALTIMORE — With more than half of its fleet either past or near its intended service life, the Coast Guard on Monday stood up a new logistics support center that it says will ease crews’ heavy maintenance workloads and help the surface fleet run more efficiently.

The Surface Forces Logistics Center and the Asset Project Office, both located at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, will centralize new depot maintenance practices for the surface fleet that are modeled after practices already in place in the aviation community.

Under the command, the Coast Guard will set up individual product lines, where managers assess the current state of the fleet and what must be done to keep it operational in the future.

The product line managers also will serve as point people for all maintenance issues to make spotting systemic issues in the fleet easier and ordering parts more cost-efficient.

“We’re trying to centralize a very large portion of the maintenance community. We are taking the Coast Guard Yard, engineering and logistics center, (maintenance and logistics) engineering units and industrial support activities, and putting them all under one umbrella,” said Capt. Dennis Blackall, the new SFLC commander. “The challenges are huge, but the opportunities also are huge.”


Rest of article at: http://navytimes.com/news/2009/01/coastguard_sflc_012709w/%2e