Introduction

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) operates a large, multiagency, multifunction materiel sustainment system (MSS) to support its forces’ operations worldwide.¹ That MSS includes not only official, organic agencies, such as financial management, engineering, depot and base repair shops, and planners, but also other elements of a non-USAF supply chain that encompasses oter DoD and contractor suppliers of maintenance, modification, transportation, warehousing, and supply services. The USAF MSS is continually caught between two countervailing pressures: demands for increased efficiency and lower costs on one side versus demands for increasingly effective sustainment of combat operations and peacetime training on the other. Those