T700 Engine Warranty Experience

The thrust on warranty programs from DOD coincided with the preparation of the production RFP for the T700 engine. The climate at the time centered around two issues; major reliability problems with fielding the new equipment after a successful engineering development program, and the need to control the resulting rise in Operating and Support (O&S) costs. The DOD policy was directed toward implementation of trial warranty programs so as to understand the issues associated with a warranty and develop a base from which to generate policy. The decision to go with contractor support for the first 3 years along with the extensive reliability and maintainability program allowed the possibility of developing a warranty program with General Electric. It was the intent of both General Electric and the Army to use the warranty program as a motivator to provide the best possible production T700 for the BLACK HAWK helicopter. It must be pointed out that there was apprehension on both sides of the nego- tiating table. General Electric was concerned about undo risk with a relatively new product, which was not totally unfounded based on previous experience with warranty programs. The Army, on the other hand, was not sure we could manage a warranty, i.e., submit a viable claim, and it was concerned about the actual return on the money invested in the program. This paper will address the background of the concept of warranty, the purpose of a warranty program in the private sector and within DOD, an explanation of the T700 warranty program and some of the experience to date.