Depot dollars

Defense Department depots have become the military's endangered species. Since 1987, the military services have gone from 38 in-house maintenance and repair centers to 18. A depot workforce that once numbered 150,000 employees has been sliced by more than half. With more military base closures looming in 2005, some fear military depots-which cost more than $15 billion annually to operate-may be on the verge of extinction.

Depot employees are well aware of the statistics. Across the country, aging maintenance centers have streamlined operations, forged partnerships with private firms and devised novel processes to more effectively repair and overhaul military equipment in an effort to save money and stay relevant.

However, most of these reforms have been initiated by individual depots. The military services have struggled to come up with an overall strategy for running their in-house maintenance operations since the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the services' primary interest in depots has been in finding ways to cut costs by winning exemptions from laws that limit the outsourcing of depot work.

That's why the Air Force's release of a strategic plan for its three depots earlier this month may be the best news for the 18 remaining military repair centers since they escaped the last round of base closures. With about 36,000 workers and $10 billion in annual spending, the Air Force depots-located at Warner Robins Air Force Base, Ga.; Hill Air Force Base, Utah; and Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.-are the largest depot operations within the military. Their new corporate approach to planning for future operations is one the Army and the Navy would do well to follow.

"This plan ensures the three [in-house] repair depots continue as key contributors to maintaining Air Force readiness and combat capability across the full spectrum of military forces for the long term," Air Force officials said in the strategic plan.

Most strikingly, the Air Force calls for an increase in spending of nearly $1 billion a year over the next five years at its three depots. The call for new funding is based on industry standards that set a goal of investing 6 percent to 7 percent of annual revenue in facilities.

The Air Force's plan also stresses the need to attract and train a new generation of workers. The Defense Department has been in the forefront of federal agencies in dealing with the expected mass exodus of white-collar workers over the next decade-even labeling it a national security crisis-but few concerns have been raised about the blue-collar brigade of depot workers, who are aging just as quickly. (The average age of a depot employee is in the mid-40s).

Years of hiring freezes have left few apprentices at depots to learn the art of welding a wing or refurbishing a nuclear aircraft carrier engine's components from graying master craftsmen. The Air Force has realized that the shortage of depot workers is a concern equal to the white-collar worker exodus. The other military services should follow suit by developing their own depot hiring and training plans.

The Air Force deserves credit for not shying away from the politically sensitive topic of how work will be split between commercial companies and depots in crafting its plan. Already, the service has numerous public-private partnerships under way, but the plan says the service will also hold biennial reviews to decide what work should be done at depots to ensure key repair capabilities are maintained by the centers at reasonable prices.

The other services have been as aggressive as the Air Force in launching public-private partnerships. Now they should be just as assertive in regularly reviewing what work should be done in-house.

Over the past decade, the military services have treated the depots like aging dinosaurs that might be better off extinct. But the Air Force's modernization plan suggests the tide may be turning in favor of preserving facilities that were once seen as mere Cold War relics. That may give depots a chance to survive-and even thrive-in the 21st century.