DLA Expands Manufacturing Tool in Fight Against COVID-19

April 29, 2020 | BY Michael Molinaro

A tool being developed by the Defense Logistics Agency, can consolidate the Defense Department's technical data into packages for advanced manufacturing, making it a new weapon in the battle against COVID-19.

The military services are already using the Joint Additive Manufacturing Model Exchange, or JAMMEX, to access dozens of models for critical items such as face shields and surgical masks.

Still in development by DLA in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health and the military services, JAMMEX lets users download and print models from multiple sources through a single system, said Tony Delgado, an additive manufacturing program manager with the DLA Information Operations Research and Development Division.

"The value proposition is that JAMMEX can be the authoritative source for DOD [additive manufacturing] stakeholders," he added, "because behind the scenes, DLA is making sure that models that go on JAMMEX are approved models, regardless of origin."

Work on the additive manufacturing portal began two years after the Office of the Secretary of Defense directed DLA to facilitate the exchange of data between the services. DLA information technology experts and logisticians met with industry and academia representatives in 2018 to gain insight into the technological landscape critical to the system's design. 

DLA's technology accelerator team worked with DLA functional experts and military users to turn best practices into a prototype. The prototype is now in development by America Makes, a public-private partnership with member organizations from industry, academia, government and non-government agencies, and workforce and economic development resources.

Despite ongoing development, the services have used JAMMEX to print spare parts such as anti-reflection devices, door handles, drone parts and brackets that would otherwise cost more and take longer to procure. 

JAMMEX has the potential to reduce readiness risks, improve responsiveness and decrease costs by providing alternate sources for hard-to-procure and obsolete parts, said Catrina Murphy, a DLA additive manufacturing program manager.

"Accelerating the adoption of the military services to load their approved models to JAMMEX, as well as investigating the feasibility of loading vendor-offered proprietary designs to JAMMEX for the military services' organic manufacturing base, are the next steps in propelling JAMMEX to be the DOD AM model authoritative source," she added.

(Michael Molinaro is assigned to the Defense Logistics Agency.)

Waking Up Aboard the Hospital Ship USNS Mercy

April 29, 2020 | BY NAVY PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS ERWIN JACOB MICIANO

After biking nearly 12 miles from Long Beach to Compton, California, Joshua Davis was transported by paramedics to the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center after being found stabbed with a sword.

Davis spent two days at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center before being transferred to the Navy hospital ship USNS Mercy to free up hospital space for COVID-19 patients.

"I woke up here, and I don't even know how I got here," Davis said, while bundled in white hospital sheets in his bunk bed.

Davis says he remembers everything up to the moment of being stabbed, and then suddenly waking up in one of the 15 recovery wards aboard the Mercy. He specifically recalls being in bed number 79. He went on to say that after being stabbed, being alive and on a hospital ship from San Diego was the last place he thought he would be.

"When we received him, he had already been treated for his laceration from his right abdomen slashed through to his left side with his intestines protruding," Navy Lt. Cmdr. (Dr.) Timothy Sehorn said. "The other hospital was successful in stopping the bleeding, treating his wound and saving his life."

Later, Sehorn and his team were able to identify and recognize a smaller, but similarly deadly, incision to Davis' small intestine.

"When you leak from your colon, it creates a massive amount of infection in your abdomen," Sehorn said. "Once that occurs, there's a snowball effect and a rapid decline of health, making it life-threatening."

After the new incisions were discovered, Davis underwent an additional exploratory laparotomy procedure and has been recovering on the Mercy for about four weeks. An exploratory laparotomy is a surgical operation where the abdomen is opened and the abdominal organs examined for injury or disease.

“It used to hurt when I would yawn or lay down, but now I feel like I can breathe better, which is helping me sleep, too," Davis said.

During his time aboard, Davis has seen his fair share of the ship: an operating room, an intensive care unit and an interventional radiology suite.

The Mercy's wards aren't set up exactly like the hospital rooms found ashore — there is no cable television or sunrise window views. The ship's primary mission is to provide rapid, flexible, and mobile acute medical and surgical services in support of service members deployed ashore, and naval amphibious task forces and battle forces afloat.

To keep himself occupied, Davis spends most of his time practicing his artistic abilities by sketching football players and pit bulls. In an effort to make him more comfortable, hospital corpsmen have draped extra bed sheets to help diffuse the light and give him extra privacy.

While he has been able to communicate with his family, they haven't been able to come aboard the ship, so he has yet to see anyone since he was admitted.

"It's been boring here, but I'm grateful for the people who work here and who've been taking care of me," Davis said. He now awaits approval from the Mercy providers to be discharged.

(Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Erwin Jacob Miciano is assigned to the U.S. 3rd Fleet.)

Service Personnel Policies Help With Retention During Pandemic

April 29, 2020 | BY C. Todd Lopez , DOD News

While the private sector suffers from social distancing and the effects of illnesses and forced shutdowns related to COVID-19, the U.S. military must continue to do its job. And though it’s too early to tell if challenges with employment among civilians have driven more people to military recruiting stations, one thing that has benefited is retention, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness said.

Speaking yesterday as part of an online discussion with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Washington, Matthew P. Donovan said that because of the increased social distancing and quarantine requirements, the military services have had to reduce the numbers they move through basic training. That reduction might leave a gap in total end strength, he said, because service members might still retire or separate in the same numbers as usual.

To address that issue, Donovan said, the military services have adjusted personnel policies to get existing service members to perhaps stay longer — and many are doing so.

As the services put voluntary extensions on enlistments and voluntary extensions on retirement dates or dates of separation into effect, that is making up for some of that gap now, Donovan said. "Folks are deciding to stay longer because they look on the outside and they [say], 'You know, I've got a pretty good job now, so I want to stay,'" he added. "It's one of the things that we're tracking, but it seems to be evening out right now."

Over the long term, the military does face competition with the private sector for talent, Donovan said, and changes might need to happen in the future to address that competition.

One possibility, he said, is looking at existing "up or out" policies requiring service members to meet timed promotion milestones or risk being asked to leave the service. Some he noted, may be happy in a particular place and in their current rank.

Other considerations include providing the opportunity for personnel to "take a pause" in their career without suffering a penalty. For example, service members might be able to leave or pause their service to start a family and then come back at a later time and pick up where they left off.

"One of the things that we're working with the Congress is to apply more permeability, the ability to move between the different components at different times in your life," Donovan said. "It may be when you're younger and you want to start a family. And that applies to either males or females, depending on who has the career going at the time." And many senior service members have parents who may be aging and in need of care, he noted, and they may want to be able to take time off and return without any penalty.

Such policy changes wouldn't mean that during such a pause personnel would get promotions or advance in seniority, but "you ought to be able to come in at the same place you left," he said.

Donovan said the Defense Department is in close consultation with Congress on these types of personnel issues.