World's Most Critical RL Operation

by Gailen Vick, President & CEO, Reverse Logistics Trends, Inc.

Reverse Logistics Magazine, Spring/Summer 2006

Gailen Vick, President of Reverse Logistics Association was recently asked to present "What's New in Reverse Logistics?" along with Jim Cochrane and Sharon Daniel of the United States Postal Service at the National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment.

During the trip to Florida, Gailen had the opportunity to visit Kennedy Space Center with RLTS past presenter Jay Gurecki, Space Shuttle Program Obsolescence Manager at NASA. NASA is undoubtedly the most professional reverse logistics organization in the world—they have to be—people's lives depend on it!

Jay Gurecki, NASA and Gailen Vick, RLA

April 12 of this year marked the 25th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle mission by Columbia. Twenty-five years later, and with over 121 missions completed these vintage craft continue to meet their mission due to the painstaking detail of over 50,000 RL professionals at NASA.

All the processes of RL are alive and well in the Space Shuttle Program. The orbiters are inspected and tested each ground processing flow to assure components are still performing as expected. In addition to the standard processing tasks, the orbiters are modified as required based on design center requirements. NASA has been sustaining the orbiters since original manufacturing—Discovery and Atlantis (late 70s early 80s) and Endeavour (late 80s early 90s).

Mike Wallace, Kurt Giacomelli and Ron Delaney of United Space Alliance

The External Tank is the only part of the Space Shuttle that is expendable—NASA is currently in the process of modifying the foam on tanks that were built prior to Columbia. In the near future, all ETs required to support the Space Shuttle Program manifest will be manufactured. The Solid Rocket Boosters get refurbished each flight.

After a launch ships recover the SRBs. The motor portion is disassembled and sent back to Utah where the solid fuel is reapplied. The nose and aft segments are inspected, retested, and prepared for flight—like the orbiters. The Space Shuttle Main Engines are extremely complicated, and ground testing in Mississippi takes place to check these components prior to installation for flight. The SSMEs have been upgraded several times over the years, and the current configuration is much more robust than the original units that flew on STS-1, April 12th 1981.

Close-up of payload area

All of the Space Shuttle elements, Orbiter, ET, SRB, SSME are supported by a large network of OEMs and suppliers. When components fail, this network and the element design centers are required to engage to understand the problem root cause and to develop and implement corrective action.

At all levels, RL is alive and well in the Space Shuttle Program!

Reverse Logistics Magazine, Spring/Summer 2006