By Geoff Fein
The Navy recently awarded Lockheed Martin [LMT] an $83 million contract to design, develop, fabricate, integrate, and test the Electronic Consolidated Automated Support System (eCASS).
eCASS will replace the current CASS test equipment originally designed and built in the 1980s and fielded in the early 1990s, the company reported.
Lockheed Martin was the original provider of CASS and understands what it takes to develop the newer system, Randy Core, director for enterprise test business, told Defense Daily yesterday.
“We understand how that system worked, and we understand what it takes in the fleet to support it and we also understand the test programs running on it,” he said.
CASS has been fielded for almost 25 years, Core noted.
“One of the key things in the eCASS program is to be able to take all those legacy test programs and run them on an eCASS station,” he said. “In the design of a more modern architecture test system like this you had to accommodate that.”
At the same time Lockheed Martin took into account emerging technologies such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), which they also build. Although Core acknowledges JSF isn’t destined to be tested on eCASS, it is possible that could happen in the future.
“We are working to make sure our testing that we are doing on JSF, on another product of ours called LM-STAR, that those technologies are merging on eCASS,” he said. “We will have the most advanced test architecture out there that can support the emerging technologies, yet support all these legacy systems too.”
eCASS will enable fleet aircraft maintenance personnel to keep aircraft mission ready at the most affordable life cycle cost for the Navy’s current and future needs, the company said in a statement.
Sailors and Marines use test program sets to troubleshoot and repair assemblies at sea or ashore, allowing them to repair units and return equipment to readiness status quickly and efficiently. Test program sets consist of hardware, diagnostic software, data and documentation capable of performing verification, alignment, adjustment, fault detection and isolation and interface adapters designed to interconnect with CASS.
“eCASS will also improve run time,” Core said. “We will see a 20 percent improvement on run time. Things will be more efficient, they will run faster than they did before, and that could and it probably will mean fewer stations required.”
Aircraft carriers have a certain set of workloads, so they have a definite number of CASS systems, Core added. “If we can run 20 percent faster then they should need fewer of those stations.”
One goal of CASS and now eCASS has been to reduce the logistics footprint, Core said. CASS replaced some testers, reducing the number of operators, creating one training path and one set of documents and manuals, he said. eCASS takes that to another level because it is faster and more modern, Core added.
“It continues what [the Navy] has been doing all along. This is something they have always pressed for in many of their architectures–to continue to drive for smaller and smaller footprints for support,” he said.
Lockheed Martin’s design and development contract provides for the procurement of 14 engineering development models during the system design and development phase of the contract. That first phase will take place over a three-year period, Core said.
Low Rate Initial Production will kick off in that third year, about the 2013 time frame, he added.
The Navy could opt out at that point for any number of reasons, such as funding, Core noted. But he is hopeful Lockheed Martin will be under contract by 2014.