DSCC Finds Better Ball Joints for Army Vehicles; Solves Quality and Delivery Problems

COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 13 -- The Army had a big problem with a part on a widely used military vehicle and Defense Supply Center Columbus was able to come to the rescue.

The two upper ball joints of the highly used High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, called the Humvee, were causing logistical problems. The part was identified as a high priority part in support of the Global War on Terrorism since there are about 78,000 HMMWVs in use today.

Not only was there a design problem in the part, but there was a limited amount of suppliers, and if that wasn't enough, the part was wearing out too quickly. They usually had to be replaced after only 12,000 miles of use.

"We found that the ball joint wasn't meeting all the specification requirements," said Laverne Johnson, a DSCC small business technical specialist. "It didn't allow the full range of motion called for in the specification."

A bad history of quality and delivery problems mandated that new sources for procurement be developed. With backorders mounting and technical problems continuing with the existing contracts, Land Group director, Army Col. Milton Lewis, and unit logistics officer Tiffany Givens-Barnett assigned Johnson the project. Working out of DSCC's Source Development Office, Johnson managed to find a company in Oregon that could help. This firm could forge new bearings to replace the previous versions which were stamped.

Sample ball joints were supplied by the company and taken to the University of Dayton Research Institute for thorough performance testing. Not only did the new ball joints pass the test, but results showed that the forged joints (National Stock Number 2530-01-188-3685) are stronger. The forged part has no welds and testing showed that there was stress on the weld points of the stamped part. Other test results showed that the new forged ball joint has a service life of 35-45,000 miles. That's more than triple the service life of the old stamped part.

Armed with these results, the government signed a contract to purchase more than 74,000 of the newly designed ball joints.

Even though the new part is a bit more expensive, the enhanced service life of the forged ball joint will mean reduced vehicle downtime, diminished usage rates/demands, and will save $1,175,405. Equally important is the fact that the Army will have more of these vehicles available to support military missions more of the time.

The Defense Supply Center Columbus is a Field Activity of the Defense Logistics Agency. The Center's workforce of almost 2,300 purchases materiel, monitors inventory levels, maintains technical data, and assures quality conformance of spare parts that vary from common items such as vehicle parts and accessories, to complex mechanical and electronic repair parts for weapon systems. These parts support a variety of equipment to include military aircraft, ships, submarines, combat vehicles and missile systems.

The Defense Logistics Agency provides supply support, and technical and logistics services to the U.S. military services and several federal civilian agencies. Headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va., the agency is the one source for nearly every consumable item, whether for combat readiness, emergency preparedness or day-to-day operations.