Mitigating diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages.

I read and enjoyed the article on "Mitigating Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages" in the May-June 2005 issue of Defense AT & L magazine. However, I was quite concerned that I found no mention of the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP) in your article about DMSMS. GIDEP was "established as DoD's centralized database for managing DMSMS information and sharing the information among DoD and industry groups" (<www.gidep.org/mgmt/directives/doddmsltr.pdf>). As such, GIDEP is one of the most vital resources available for "mitigating diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages."

My agency uses GIDEP to inform our personnel and our customers of product concerns; to monitor other sources of information on nonconforming material, quality escapes, DMSMS issues: and to find alternate sources of supply. I have personally used a GIDEP Urgent Data Request to locate an obsolete magnetic material required for the manufacture of tachometer rotors for the TF-39 engines (used on the Galaxy C-5A aircraft). That GIDEP UDR saved over $50,000.00 and 60 weeks of manufacturing time and kept the Galaxies in the air during a wartime crisis.

Paula M. George

Defense Contract Management Agency

THE AUTHORS RESPOND: GIDEP, as Ms. George points out, is an integral part of the DoD DMSMS mitigation process, as well as a key member of the DoD DMSMS Working Group chartered by the DoD Total Life Cycle Systems Management Executive Council. GIDEP is a cooperative activity between government and industry participants seeking to reduce or eliminate expenditures of resources by sharing technical information essential during research, design, development, production, and operational phases of the life cycle of systems, facilities, and equipment.

Driven by space constraints, we chose to emphasize the resources available through the DMSMS Center of Excellence Web site at <www.drnsms.org>, through which readers can access the wide array of DMSMS resources available, including links to Air Force, Army, Navy, Defense Logistics Agency. Defense Acquisition University, Defense Microelectronics Activity, and of course, GIDEP (<www.gidep.org>). Not only does the DMSMS COE conveniently link to the wide array of DMSMS materials available on the GIDEP home page, but in fact, GIDEP membership is required to access many of the resources available on the DMSMS COE site, including the Obsolescence Solution Wizard, the DMSMS Predictive Tools, and the Urgent Data Request Forum.