Maintaining the many types of legacy weapon systems within the Department of Defense (DoD) is an enormous task, made more challenging by the aging of many of these systems. Some of the weapons were designed over 50 years ago and are now facing a shortage of sustainment components due to obsolescence. The situation is further complicated by the lack of sufficient documentation for fabricating or building new components. In addition, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) may refuse to bid due to low purchase quantities or the unavailability of tooling for producing parts. Another significant challenge in maintaining DoD equipment is the high cost associated with procuring materials, especially when there is no competition among suppliers. Developing competition for components can be difficult when the government does not have data rights or sufficient documentation to enable new sources to be developed. To address these challenges and meet the needs of the warfighter, new solutions are needed to replace obsolete or difficult-to-find parts and keep procurement costs in check. Reverse Engineering (RE) is a process that can be used to create Technical Data Packages (TDPs) and develop new manufacturing sources for many of the DoD's limited source, single source, or sole source parts. This effort involves performing the necessary Research and Development (R&D) to conduct RE and create TDPs for components identified by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) as limited source, with little or no documentation available for their production. A&B Foundry will undertake the R&D required to create Source Approval Requests (SAR) for submission to the DLA along with the First Articles for testing.
