Eleven Naval Sea Systems Command personnel received a team excellence award in a ceremony held at the Washington Navy Yard Oct. 27. Six of those 11 awardees are from the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD).

All 11 received the NAVSEA (06L) Logistics Team of the Year award after having been finalists for the Admiral Stan Arthur Award for Logistics Excellence. NSWC PCD's Peter Halvorson accepted the NAVSEA 06L award on the team's behalf during the NAVSEA ceremony.

The team earned the award in recognition of the innovative logistics approach and integrated sustainment solutions utilized by the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Mine Countermeasures Mission Package (MCM MP) Logistics team to solve major logistics issues with the MCM MP in preparation for Technical Evaluation (TECHEVAL) and Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E).

"In recognition of the unparalleled leadership and personal dedication you have exhibited while creating logistics support strategies for the full spectrum of Navy ships and weapon systems. Your work accomplishments constantly reflect both innovative thinking and creative problem solving and result in more capable, flexible and safe warfighters across the entire Navy and Marine Corps Team. Bravo Zulu," read the award citation signed by Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command Vice Adm. William Hilarides, USN.

The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is the new generation of surface combatants optimized for operating in the littorals. The underlying strength of the LCS lies in its innovative design approach, applying mission-specific modularity for operational flexibility while also employing a limited manning concept. Fundamental to this approach is the capability to rapidly install interchangeable Mission Packages (MPs) into the sea frame.

During 2014, the team conducted multiple events designed to help put theoretical logistic support into practice and in preparation for IOT&E. Events included the Logistics Concept of Operation (CONOP) tabletop held at NSWC Panama City Division in January 2014.

"This was one of the first opportunities for each of the Participating Acquisition Resource Managers, or PARMs, to come together and present the individual logistics products that they were developing and how they perceived that those products would fit into the overarching LCS Wholeness CONOP," the nomination cited.

Later that same year, the team conducted the Sustainment Demonstration, also called S-Demo, also in Panama City, Florida.

"This S-Demo resulted in a truly successful demonstration of the sustainment processes put into place by the MCM MP Logistics team, but it also identified immaturity in many of the logistics products that were still in development for use by the Fleet. In the latter part of 2014, resolving those deficiencies and pushing towards finalization of those logistics products quickly became the focus of the Logistics team," the award nomination cited.

The team developed an asset tracker which allowed the MCM MP Logistics team to initially identify outfitting shortages of up to 86 percent for some systems and quickly procured the necessary items to reduce and mitigate those shortages down to 10 percent or less. In addition, the team implemented Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging on all on-hand assets so that any future usage or shortages could be quickly and efficiently identified by a quick scan of those tags.

"This was all accomplished by the MCM MP Logistics team on schedule and within budget. The team also accomplished these efforts despite the turnover of several key personnel in 2014. The end result was a seamless integration of multiple and unique Mission System logistics requirements into a single, cohesive set of LCS MCM MP Sustainment tools and products to allow the warfighter to successfully and effectively accomplish his mine warfare mission," the nominated cited.

The six NSWC PCD personnel on the MCM MP Logistics team are Peter Halvorson; Brandon Chennaux; David Daigle; Joanne Holt; Stephen Hontscharik and Frank VanDevander.

For more news from Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division, visit www.navy.mil/local/NSWC/.