Logistics impacts and influences of ATE designed to meet the TLM concept

The two-level maintenance (TLM) concept is being advocated as a means of increasing support capability and reducing the total cost of system maintenance. Traditionally, the Air Force has used a three level maintenance concept, with a heavy emphasis on base level, in-shop repair. In the 1970s and 1980s, this approach to maintenance and the expanding technology of automated test systems resulted in sophisticated and powerful, but costly and resource-consuming automated test systems being developed and deployed worldwide. With continuing advances in reliability, and emphasis on supportable designs, it is apparent that, under certain combinations of resource costs, item reliability, and usage rates, two levels of maintenance provide more support at less cost and consume less resources than does three-level maintenance. The objective of TLM is to eliminate, when feasible, the base-level repair shop from the maintenance structure. The authors explore the rationale behind and the methods of identifying the optimum level of repair, and explain why it is necessary to analyze the requirements before assigning a particular maintenance task to a certain level of maintenance