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Aircraft fail to meet mission capable rate goals due to a lack of supply of aircraft parts in inventory where the aircraft breaks. This triggers an order at the repair location. To maximize mission capable rate, the time from order to delivery needs to be minimized. The purpose of this research is to examine the case of three airfields for the order to delivery time of mission critical aircraft parts for a specific aircraft type.

This research captured data from three information systems to assess the order fulfillment process. The data were analyzed to determine the performance in fiscal year 2020. Using the model of that performance, the cost of reducing transportation times using publicly available commercial cost estimates was assessed against the impact on aircraft availability.

The results indicate that paying the costs for expedited shipping would have increased aircraft availability by 1.09 times the average annual aircraft flying hours for the three cases. The cost for the equivalent of an additional aircraft for the year was a third of the annual straight-line depreciation for that aircraft type.

This research assumed that the transportation time service levels publicly posted could be achieved. The weight of each mission critical part was not available, so the weight was selected from a probability distribution of mission critical part weights that was retrieved from prior research. This research provides options to enhance aircraft availability and identifies the associated costs.

Adjusting the contract with transportation providers to reduce the transportation times of mission critical parts could have a large impact on aircraft availability at relatively little cost.

This research could enhance aircraft readiness in service of the common defense.

This research provides an effective methodology for enhancing military readiness through contract adjustments with commercial partners. The value of this research is that it will serve to adjust the value proposition of mission critical parts inside the United States Transportation Command’s Next Generation Delivery Service contract.

This paper aims to measure the effect of supply discrepancy reports (SDRs) on military aircraft readiness metrics, including aircraft availability, not mission capable supply (NMCS) hours, cannibalizations and mission-impaired capability awaiting parts (MICAP) hours.

Monthly SDR, NMCS, aircraft cannibalizations and MICAP data from 2009 to 2018 are analyzed using linear regression and independent samples t-tests to examine whether discrepant shipments negatively impact aircraft readiness.

Results of linear regression were significant in 4 of 12 analyses, suggesting that SDRs are a significant predictor of increased cannibalizations. Results of independent samples t-tests found MICAP hours were significantly higher on discrepant shipments compared to nondiscrepant shipments in all three analyses.

This research will increase awareness of the extent to which SDRs degrade aircraft readiness, and provide an opportunity for United States Department of Defense (DoD) supply chain leaders to take action to improve order fulfillment performance in their organizations.

Little research has been done investigating the impact of SDRs within the DoD, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has examined the effect of SDRs on military aircraft readiness metrics.

Aircraft availability (AA) is a key metric for assessing operational readiness. The declining trend in AA is a documented concern for senior Air Force leaders. This paper aims to investigate the components of non-available time and subsequently focuses on the largest and fastest growing category: not mission capable maintenance unscheduled (NMCMU). Then, utilization of aircraft platforms is examined to determine the readiness benefits of increasing available hours.

Stepwise regression is conducted on a data set of 30 aircraft platforms, consisting of 542 observations from 1998 to 2017, to reveal drivers of NMCMU. Next, utilization of aircraft platforms is examined through regression and correlation analysis of aircraft platforms and sorties or hours flown.

Regression analysis reveals drivers of NMCMU include platform type, average age of aircraft, fleet size, breaks and cannibalization. These factors explain 80.6 per cent of the variance in the data set when predicting NMCMU. Additionally, the utilization results show that when more hours are made available, 5 per cent of each new hour is used for flying. Further analysis at the individual platform level finds a strong or moderate correlation between available hours and sorties flown for 93 per cent of the platforms.

Implications from the regression analysis demonstrate there are remedies to increase AA, but many of these remedies may be costly. The utilization analysis expresses the potential readiness benefits of increasing available hours.

This paper aims to explore effective supply chain principles, through the theory of transaction cost economics, as measures to improve current contingency pharmaceutical item shortfalls in the Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) Contingency Pharmaceutical Programme.

In this research, AFMS contingency pharmaceutical data was collected from various databases, including the Joint Medical Asset Repository, Medical Contingency Requirements Workflow and the Medical Requirements List. Through the methodology of cost-benefit analysis, alternative sourcing and fulfilment practices are evaluated.

The findings of this research indicate that the application of centralized purchasing principles, in an effort to leverage prime vendor contract fill rates for shortage items, can lead to 12%–17% increases in pharmaceutical material availability across the programme.

This research clearly shows that consolidating demand for shortage items across Active Duty War Reserve Material assemblages, though applications of centralized purchasing principles that leverage prime vendor contract fill rates, can lead to substantial increases in material availability at costs that justify the calculated benefits.

Defence supply chains (SCs) aim at operational outcomes, and armed forces depend on them to provide availability and preparedness in peace and sustainability in war. Previous research has focussed on strategies for SCs aiming at financial outcomes. This raises the question of how suitable commercial supply chain strategies (SCSs) are for supply chain design (SCD) in defence. The purpose of this paper is to explain the constructs of SCSs that satisfy military operational requirements and to propose SCSs that are appropriate in defence.

This paper reports on a Delphi study with 20 experts from Swedish defence authorities. Through three Delphi rounds, two workshops and a validation round, these experts contributed to the reported findings.

The findings demonstrate that commercial SC constructs are acceptable and applicable in defence but not sufficient. An additional strategy is required to satisfy requirements on availability, preparedness and sustainability. The paper shows that different requirements in peace and war make it challenging to design suitable defence SCs and proposes eight SCSs that satisfy these requirements.

The results emanate from the Swedish defence context and further research is required for generalisation.

This paper extends theory by investigating SCs aiming at operational outcomes. For managers in companies and defence authorities, it explicates how the unique issues in defence must influence SCD to satisfy operational requirements.

Work-life flexibility policies (e.g., flextime, telework, part-time, right-to-disconnect, and leaves) are increasingly important to employers as productivity and well-being strategies. However, policies have not lived up to their potential. In this chapter, the authors argue for increased research attention to implementation and work-life intersectionality considerations influencing effectiveness. Drawing on a typology that conceptualizes flexibility policies as offering employees control across five dimensions of the work role boundary (temporal, spatial, size, permeability, and continuity), the authors develop a model identifying the multilevel moderators and mechanisms of boundary control shaping relationships between using flexibility and work and home performance. Next, the authors review this model with an intersectional lens. The authors direct scholars’ attention to growing workforce diversity and increased variation in flexibility policy experiences, particularly for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality, which is defined as having multiple intersecting identities (e.g., gender, caregiving, and race), that are stigmatized, and link to having less access to and/or benefits from societal resources to support managing the work-life interface in a social context. Such an intersectional focus would address the important need to shift work-life and flexibility research from variable to person-centered approaches. The authors identify six research considerations on work-life intersectionality in order to illuminate how traditionally assumed work-life relationships need to be revisited to address growing variation in: access, needs, and preferences for work-life flexibility; work and nonwork experiences; and benefits from using flexibility policies. The authors hope that this chapter will spur a conversation on how the work-life interface and flexibility policy processes and outcomes may increasingly differ for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality compared to those with lower work-life intersectionality in the context of organizational and social systems that may perpetuate growing work-life and job inequality.

This work analyses autonomous ships' specific needs of external and environmental information in restricted pilotage waters. Harbour pilots use conventional well-tested techniques when piloting the manned vessel. In this work, the authors propose technological solutions to be installed or adapted in ports to feed the autonomous ships' systems with the information considered relevant by pilots.

To investigate what pilots consider relevant, the authors submitted a questionnaire to the pilotage of Paranaguá Port. Then the authors presented a case study including the critical areas for the navigation of ships.

These technological solutions aim to allow vessels reaching critical areas in a position, a time, a speed and a course that compensates the external forces and/or avoid high-risk situations. The authors have proposed technological solutions considering those already available in the ports, particularly in Paranaguá and Antonina in Brazil.

There is little published data on navigation of ships in pilotage waters. So far, there has been little discussion on autonomous ships in restricted waters.

This paper aims to assess the design of national-level flexible work arrangement (FWA) policies, evaluating their potential to serve as an effective resource for employees to work flexibly depending on how they set the stage for flexibility claims that will be subject to industrial and workplace dynamics.

Using a capability approach, the authors conceptualize and operationalize two aspects of FWA policy design, namely accessibility and availability. The authors' analysis allows for an understanding of how the availability and accessibility of national FWA policies explicitly and implicitly restrict or facilitate flexible working in a structural manner. The study focuses on countries with differing working time regimes and gender norms on work and care: the Netherlands, Spain and Slovenia.

The authors' findings highlight how FWA accessibility is broader when national policy is specified and FWA availability is not conditional to care. In Spain and Slovenia, access to FWAs depends on whether employees have care responsibilities, which reduces accessibility and reinforces gender imbalances in care provision. In contrast, the Netherlands provides FWAs universally, resulting in wider availability and accessibility of FWAs for employees regardless of their care responsibilities. Despite this universal provision, gender imbalances remain.

The originality of this paper lies in its conceptualization and operationalization of FWAs at the national level using a capability approach. The study adds to the existing literature on flexible working and provides insights for policymakers to design more effective FWAs.

While efforts at understanding how the entrepreneurial spirit is awakened (e.g., unwrapping the cognitive “black box”) have been productive in the new venture context, it remains largely unexplored in a corporate setting.This study extends previous research by investigating the relationship between organizational antecedents and perceptions of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and desirability of entrepreneurial activity. In a field study of organizations consistent with a corporate entrepreneurial archetype typology, we found that (1) individual work discretion and time availability impacted entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and (2) individual interest in work innovation influenced perceived desirability of innovative behaviors.

Pre-eclampsia and eclampsia (PE/E) are rising in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria. This study aims to evaluate the availability and logistics management of sixteen items from the Nigerian essential medicine list required for managing these conditions.

A cross-sectional study in 50 health-care facilities in Lagos State, Nigeria, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic by interviewing the facility’s main person in charge of health commodities. Data were recorded during the visit and in the previous six months using the adapted Logistics Indicators Assessment Tool (LIAT). In addition, descriptive analysis was conducted based on the World Health Organization availability index.

The availability of 13 (81%) of the commodities were high, and 3 (19%) were relatively high in the facilities, stock out rate during the visitation and previous six months varied with the commodities: urinalysis strip (22%) and (40%), hydralazine (20%) and (20%), labetalol injection (8%) and (20%), labetalol tablet (24%) and (24%) and sphygmomanometer (8%) and (8%). No stock out was recorded for 11 (69%) commodities. All the facilities observed 9 (75%) out of the 12 storage guidelines, and 36 (72%) had a perfect storage condition score.

Current state of PE/E health commodities in the selected facilities is highlighted, and the strengths and weaknesses of the supply chain in these health facilities were identified and discussed.

These commodities’ availability ranged from reasonably high to very high. Regular supportive supervision is germane to strengthening the logistics management system for these commodities to prevent the negative impact on the health and well-being of the people during the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic.