As of 27 May 99 V-22 Cited for Excellence in Value Engineering By Gidge Dady V-22 Public Affairs       Naval Air Station PATUXENT RIVER, Md. The V-22 Program was among the recipients of the annual Department of Defense Value Engineering Achievement (VEA) award, presented by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, Jacques S. Gansler, May 25 in ceremonies at the Pentagon.
    V-22 Deputy Program Manager, Barbara Smith, accepted the award on behalf of the V-22 team, which was cited for “aggressively pursuing ways to reduce the V-22 acquisition and life cycle costs.”  This was accomplished by establishing a Value Engineering Change Proposal Integrated Product Team comprised of government and industry representatives from the Naval Air Systems Command, Defense Contract Management Command, and the V-22 Contractor, the Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office (JPO).
    Although the V-22 program is just entering the low rate initial production phase of acquisition, this team devised a method to process more quickly the technical, logistics, configuration management and business value engineering change proposals submitted by the JPO.  When in place, these engineering change proposals will result in significant program acquisition or life cycle cost savings without affecting the essential system performance requirements.
     “Selection for this award indicates the commitment to total system cost reduction by the entire V-22 program team as well as our Bell-Boeing industry partners.  I expect that many more value engineering change proposals will be submitted as the V-22 transitions to full rate production,” said Dennis Malloy, the value engineering administrator for the Naval Air Systems Command.  Malloy added that in fiscal year 1998 six value engineering change proposals were submitted and two are in the final contract negotiation phase. If implemented, projected savings to the government would exceed $1million.
     Value engineering is defined as a systematic functional analysis leading to actions or recommendation to improve the value of systems, equipment, facilities, service and supplies with the goal of reducing costs and improving quality.  The VEA award highlights such achievements in seven categories to include program management, the area in which the V-22 team was recognized.       -END-