Department of Defense Maintenance Symposium to Focus on High Performance Maintenance

HOUSTON, Oct. 21, 2004 -- Military equipment and weapons systems maintenance will take center stage as military maintainers, manufacturers, and component suppliers participate in the 2004 Department of Defense Maintenance Symposium and Exhibition, to be held October 25-28, 2004 at the Hilton Americas in Houston, Texas.

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The Symposium, sponsored by the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Material Readiness in conjunction with SAE International (The Society of Automotive Engineers), will focus on making high-performance maintenance leaner, more agile, more focused, and more responsive. It will also address commercial and military maintenance technologies, information management, and maintenance management processes. The Symposium agenda features an outstanding slate of senior level speakers from Government and Industry, a wide range of panels and breakout sessions, and 150 exhibitors. More than 1,200 people are expected to attend.

"This year's theme, 'High-Performance Maintenance: Lean, Agile, Focused, Responsive,' is particularly appropriate because it is vital in this period of transformation that we remain focused on the end result of our efforts - support to warfighter," David P. Pauling, Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, said. "As we adapt leaner, smarter methodologies, we must bear in mind the high quality that Department of Defense maintenance has always provided and strive to keep that level of support for our front-line troops."

The Symposium agenda features a superb slate of thought-provoking topics. In the plenary sessions, the panels will discuss process improvement opportunities and examine how the transformed mindset, tools, and methods will leverage DoD maintenance toward higher levels of performance. The breakouts and technical sessions cover a wide array of very topical subjects-from aging systems and corrosion to depot partnerships, from the reconstitution of wartime assets to the maintenance lessons learned from the Shuttle Columbia accident investigation. Another fascinating aspect of the Maintenance Symposium is the Exhibit Hall, where government and industry display current and advanced technologies and services that keep our maintenance teams the best in the world, including displays from NASA and the Coast Guard.

Department of Defense Keynote speaker will be The Honorable James G. Roche, Secretary of the Air Force. Industry Keynote speaker will be Thomas G. Culligan, Executive Vice President for Business Development, Raytheon Company, Chief Executive Officer, Raytheon International, Inc.

For the 20th year, the Secretary of Defense Maintenance Award will be presented. And, the Phoenix Award, which is the highest award for field maintenance in the Department of Defense, will be presented. New this year will be the unveiling of the Secretary of Defense Award for Depot-Level Excellence, which honors the late Robert T. Mason.

For more information pertaining to this Secretary of Defense Maintenance Award, contact Maj. Sandy Burr (703) 693-8287, sandra.burr@osd.mil. Information about the Department of Defense Maintenance Symposium is updated continually and is available online at http://www.sae.org/dod . To receive printed materials, call (724) 772-7131, or e-mail meetings@sae.org.

SAE is a non-profit engineering and scientific organization dedicated to the advancement of mobility technology to better serve humanity. Nearly 84,000 engineers and scientists who are SAE members develop technical information on all forms of self-propelled vehicles, including automobiles, aircraft, aerospace craft, trucks, buses, marine, rail and transit machinery. This information is disseminated through SAE meetings, books, electronic products and databases, technical papers, standards, reports, and professional development programs.

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Note to editors: Accredited media representatives are invited to attend this symposium/exhibition at no charge. To register on-line, please visit http://www.sae.org/events/dod/ or contact Maj. Sandy Burr, OSD Press Operations at (703) 693-8287, sandra.burr@osd.mil. During the conference Maj. Burr can be reached at (703) 380-2403