-Current, Army policy requires Soldiers to remove any damaged or unserviceable wheel assembly and replace said assembly with another that is in inventory for the High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). An assembly is defined as the Tire, Rim, and the runflat. The unserviceable assembly is then sent to one of 5 Army Material Command (AMC) repair facilities and a serviceable assembly is sent back to the user. This procedure can take from days to weeks.
-A capability exists to allow the soldier to extract and insert the Hutchinson One piece runflat from/into 16.5” or 17" tires in less than 5 minutes and extract and insert 16" thru 20" runflats in less than 15 minutes. Each of these processes requires only ONE Soldier with no manual labor. It has been said that it takes 2 Soldiers 1 to 2 hours to perform this same task with the current AMC procedure. There is also a substantial cost savings in recycling the runflat and added benefit to the National Guard by putting the control of tire repair and changing back in the hands of the State. This capability is extremely compact and has a footprint small enough to fit in the back of a HMMWV. The purchase will provide the State with increased Operational Readiness.
-Over 2/3 of the weight of the Tire assembly is the runflat and the rim. As stated above the current processes is to remove the tire, place it on a pallet, and ship it to a central AMC facility where a new tire is installed and then placed on a pallet and shipped back to the unit. Currently North Carolina has produced a Cost Benefit Analysis, reflecting a positive return on investment, using an industry available capability. The cost avoidance in man-hours, time, and shipping charges associated with the current process will save money, increase readiness, and better position the Guard for a disaster or domestic disturbance.
-When there is a need for National Guard domestic support, we do not have days or weeks to wait for a tire to travel to/from AMC to be replaced. The National Guard needs this capability within each Field Maintenance Shop (FMS) & Combined Support Maintenance Shop (CSMS). The equipment would provide a FMS or a CSMS tire changing capability on the move or at home station. An additional benefit is preservation of technician positions that will be affected by budget reduction and decreased Optempo.