A Message from Ms. Asuman Vangölü Head of Procurement Management Department of SSM
In Turkey, a modern defence industry using the national resources as a base was established by concentrating on domestic development model especially since 2000’s through the procurement projects that have been executed by SSM for the modernization of Turkish Armed Forces (TAF). During this process, our defence industry has transformed into a “production based on engineering and design” oriented structure from a “production under license” oriented structure. Meeting the needs of TAF by our local companies on the basis of “domestic development and production model” has been adopted as a national policy and thus, positive results have been received both regarding the modernization of TAF and development of our industry. It is aimed to implement such policy also in the forthcoming period.
It is obligatory to keep the systems delivered to the inventory available for service at desired level of performance and cost effectively during their term of usage since the homeland security is the primary need for defence. Our Undersecretariat regards as a strategic goal the implementation and dissemination of life cycle management approach that deals with the procurement and utilization phases as a whole for the systems developed and delivered to the inventory especially by the local companies regarding the modernization of Land, Naval and Air Forces.
When the industry infrastructure and qualified labor is considered, our Undersecretariat adopts as a principle to ensure the sustainment of defence systems through the synergy to be acquired with the usage of private sector dynamics and capabilities together with public sector capabilities in order to ensure high preparedness for war on a cost effective basis.
In order to accomplish the strategic goals and principles mentioned above, through the modernization projects executed under the responsibility of our Undersecretariat, the product support strategies based on Performance Based Logistics (PBL) approach are being established regarding the projects to provide logistics support for the systems available in the TAF’s inventory. In line with the logistics support strategies adopted by our Undersecretariat, our Procurement Management Department has established a general model regarding PBL where the roles and responsibilities of our major stakeholders are identified. This model, namely “5P”, is based upon 5 major stakeholders consisting of Program Manager, Product Support Manager, Product Support Integrator, Product Support Providing Companies/Public Institutions and End User. In this model, the End User using the product personally is positioned as a focal point. I would like to point out that a “Product Support Manager” role is given to the project managers serving in the headquarter, and control and monitoring role in maintenance and repair activities performed by contractors is given to the unit personnel acting on behalf of the end user. Through this model, the stakeholders’ focusing on their own capabilities is also ensured.
In this model, meeting the needs of end users (customers), delivering services and eliminating technical problems in line with the identified parameters are identified as the most critical functions. These functions are expected to be performed by our small and medium sized companies to assume the role of a Product Support Provider. It is seen that such companies creating added value to defence industry sector especially since 2000s have been exerting efforts to reach the required level of maturity in order to assume such role and have achieved to a large extent.
On this opportunity, I wish our companies a successful IDEF 2015 where they will able to present their level of competence in terms of logistics support.
