As the joint light tactical vehicle program heads toward the end of its engineering, manufacturing and development phase, the military is testing each competitors’ manufacturing prowess.
Lockheed Martin announced Sept. 5 that its team had completed a production readiness review that evaluated the company’s manufacturing capabilities in terms of schedule, performance, cost and risk. The review was conducted at the company’s Camden, Arkansas, ground vehicle assembly facility.
“During the PRR we demonstrated to the satisfaction of the customer that the Lockheed Martin JLTV team is ready for full-rate production in Camden,” said Scott Greene, vice president of ground vehicles at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “We did this through two days of presentations and factory line visits where we provided a government team with proof of our ability to produce the JLTV vehicle now.”
To further demonstrate the facility’s capabilities, the company assembled its JLTV variant from the ground up during the PRR, a process that took about 10 hours, Greene said. This was not a required part of the review.
The joint light tactical vehicle is slated to replace the Army and Marine Corps’ Humvee fleets. The services plan on buying 48,000 and 5,500 vehicles, respectively.
The completion of the production readiness review was a significant milestone for Lockheed, which does not have as much experience manufacturing ground vehicles as the other two competitors in the program, Oshkosh Defense and AM General.
Incumbent AM General, which produced the Humvee, completed its PRR at the end of August, Chris Vanslager, the company’s vice president of program management and business development, told National Defense. Its blast resistant vehicle-off road vehicle, or BRV-O, would be produced at the same Mishawaka, Indiana, plant where Humvees and other light tactical vehicles are assembled.
“We have incorporated the joint light tactical vehicle production processes right into our existing hot production base for the Humvee,” he said. This allows the JLTV to benefit from lessons learned from other vehicles and the experience of AM General’s workforce, he added.
“If you talk about the Humvee line or the special forces line or the foreign military market line, the JLTV stays in line with that flexible, kitted approach, contributing to affordability without having to add special tools,” he added.
A spokeswoman for Oshkosh declined to comment on the program. The company is offering its light combat tactical all-terrain vehicle, known as the L-ATV.
Lockheed, Oshkosh and AM General entered the EMD phase in 2012 and have since built 22 vehicles for testing.
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