There are three subjects that have the attention of the new head of Air Force Materiel Command, Gen. Bruce Carlson, and he says, “you won’t hear me talk about much more than those.” On a recent visit to the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee, Carlson said the topics are: people, core missions, and continuous process improvement. He says AFMC has no clear means to replace a graying workforce across the command or to adequately train new accessions into depots. He says the command has to “work on that.” And, he says, AFMC will use continuous process improvement “as a lens to focus” its technology development and system fielding, testing, and sustainment. Doing that, says Carlson, will enable AFMC to “figure out how to make things better, quicker, cheaper, and more effectively.”
The Air Force on March 12 awarded contract modifications worth a combined $2.4 billion to Boeing to procure an undisclosed number of E-7 Wedgetail as part of the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase and continue work on the airborne battle management aircraft’s radar.