In Service Support

The Tornado In-Service Support (ISS) programme has now entered its fourth decade of service. The provision of the ISS service and structure to the Tornado platform requires constant innovation to guarantee successful industry support. Our Panavia ISS service is continually evolving to ensure that the modern day fighter demand and requirements from the customer community are fully satisfied. The complexity of the ISS equipments, range from airframe and general systems line replacement units and piece parts spares to complex modern state of the art Avionics systems.

The organisation of the industrial base and supply chain have been successfully managed to respond effectively to the ongoing challenges of a constantly changing economic, political and international security environment.

The range of support provided through our authorised ISS Industrial supplier network provides efficient, successful and rapid logistic support solutions and services to our four national customers, both within Europe and the Middle East. The In Service support activities encompass Training, Ground Support Systems, Technical Publications, Repair and Overhaul, Spares Procurement and Modifications.

The Tornado authorised supplier base covers 128 specialised suppliers across Europe and the USA. This wide diversity of suppliers and the integrated supply chain is managed in conjunction with a complex customer IT framework to ensure transactional activities, from ordering, authorisation, delivery to invoicing are fully encompassed within one reporting infrastructure.

To ensure the sustainment and continuation of the in service support infrastructure to the operation aircraft, Panavia, in co-operation with the customers and operators has developed and implemented an Integrated Logistics Support and Obsolescence Management System which extends to the furthest reaches of the supply chain and with refinements, has proved its resilience over several decades. This approach allows for the early identification and the management action required to ensure the continuation of the wider supply chain for the operational fleet.

The service needs for each respective customer involve not only internal customer National support solutions, but also the deployment of tailored availability and support solutions. The maintenance of the supplier base to cover all of the operational demand is challenging. Our central ISS role is to ensure that we establish and maintain the optimum service delivery for the required customer demand.

Our ISS function and control also encompasses the delivery of the optimum support solution for the service. This could involve order batching of common customer demands and the adoption on innovative availability solutions. As we move forward with our ISS service into the next decade of the Tornado platform we will have to continually review the traditional industrial supplier contacting solutions to ensure that our ISS solution is continually tailored to the needs of the individual Air Forces.