Factory Support - The Development of a Strategy for the Factory Support of a Fielded Surveillance System

From late 1992 to mid 1993, Aquila and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) executed a Factory Support Program for the Modular Integrated Video System (MIVS). The goal of the program was to strengthen logistic support for the more than 200 MIVS deployed world-wide. In addition to accomplishing this goal, a completely unanticipated improvement in overall mission performance was also obtained. The benefit of the accumulated experience of IAEA field technicians and inspectors combined with that of product engineers from Aquila resulted in a mission effectiveness and efficiency that neither could produce alone. This paper describes the individual components of the MIVS Factory Support activities which, taken together, constitute an entire logistics support process. The MIVS factory support program is an example of the far-reaching benefits obtained by combining the resources of the system user with those of the system manufacturer to achieve the best possible mission effectiveness.