Working teams entrusted with elaborating on a plan to modernize the French armed forces have come up with an outline for streamlining support services and resolving the thorny question of on-condition maintenance.

Government figures show that 60 percent of the defense personnel budget goes for support activities and only 40 percent for operations - the opposite of the situation in other allied nations, notably the U.K. The objective of the reform plan, to be announced on June 19, will be to reverse these percentages.

Defense Minister Herve Morin recently outlined some details of the plan, including establishing joint support service, a centralized purchasing office, a network of 90 or so support bases and a system of operational budgets to facilitate the mutualization of administrative, commissary and other light support services.

Earlier this week, he said these and other measures would allow the ministry to cut 42,000 jobs, military and civil, over the six to seven years it will take to implement the plan, which is intended to increase efficiency, lower costs and free up money to fund force deployment and modernization.

A major part of the effort to streamline support will be focused on on-condition maintenance. Despite the expenditure of some 1.5 billion euros between 2002 and 2007, the ministry has been unable to reach its operational availability targets, Morin says. Availability for helicopters, for example, has remained struck at around 30 percent. And maintenance structures, such as for ordnance, suffer from a lack of commonality and interchangeability, he says, citing the new Rafale front-line fighter as an example.

Procedures also need to be standardized. For example, Morin notes, the air force counts utilization time for the new EC 725 Caracal until the aircraft touches down. The army stops the counter only once the rotor reaches a standstill, which can result in up to a 15 percent difference in service time. At the same time, costs are skyrocketing, Morin said. Support costs for the new Tiger attack helicopter are 8,000 euros per flight hour, compared to 800 euros for the older Gazelle. "I'm convinced it's not a question of money... It's a matter of organization."

To this effect, the plan will establish a new system to handle on-condition maintenance. The system will comprise a well-identified management entity, such as the MRO arm of the air force, Simmad, that will be responsible for organizing and contracting maintenance services. There will be only two management levels, instead of three currently, to increase reactivity.

Much of the work will be outsourced to private service providers to lower costs and increase efficiency. Outsourcing will be introduced gradually, ramping up in earnest only in the second half of the 2009-13 defense spending plan, and will be limited to industrial support. Contrary to the practice established by allies like the U.S., operational support will continue to be provided directly by the armed forces. "We want operational structures to be projectable and fully integrated," Morin said.

Although the streamlining plan has yet to receive final approval, some aspects of the maintenance reorganization are already being implemented - a sign of the urgency with which it is perceived. A new infrastructures unit, the SIAe, was set up within the air force in January to manage MRO and other major support services for the air force. A naval counterpart is already up and running and an army unit is planned. The air force also created a new command to integrate MRO and other major support services.

To raise availability and reduce costs, the plan will also mandate that maintainability concerns be integrated into upstream program design and development. Development programs will henceforth be managed from inception to decomissioning by a single office, either from armaments agency DGA or the general staff itself, taking into account acquisition, ownership and dismantling costs. Exportability and technology sufficiency will also be considered from the outset so the armed forces "do not end up with an army of prototypes," Morin said.