Wright Brothers Institute Hosts Industry Day to Support F-35 Workforce Planning
The Wright Brothers Institute (WBI) recently hosted an Industry Day in partnership with the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), bringing together leading innovators to help solve one of the program’s most pressing challenges: workforce planning.
The JPO, responsible for managing the world’s most complex fighter aircraft program, is seeking industry input on the development of a robust, data-driven manpower requirement model. This new approach aims to provide a structured methodology for determining workforce needs and justifying personnel requirements based on real operational workload.
The F-35 program integrates the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and numerous international partners. Its massive scale spans acquisition, production, modernization, and sustainment—creating an unmatched level of management complexity.
“The F-35 is more than an aircraft—it’s a global enterprise,” said Maj Gen Scott Cain, F-35 Program Executive Officer. “To sustain this program for decades, we need a workforce model that is as advanced and adaptive as the jet itself.”
Traditional manpower models designed for legacy aircraft like the F-16 or F-18 cannot meet today’s demands. Comparative analyses show critical shortfalls in how workforce structure and sustainment planning are handled. The desired model will correct these gaps, aligning manpower decisions with operational requirements, partner expectations, and evolving mission priorities.
During the Industry Day, the JPO outlined its key objectives for the manpower model, encouraging participants to explore innovative, validated approaches that can:
Determine Total Workforce Needs across functional areas such as engineering, logistics, contracting, program management, cybersecurity, and foreign military sales.
Justify Allocations by providing a defensible framework that clearly links workload to headcount—an essential step in communicating with Congress, the Services, and global partners.
Assess Workforce Mix across military, civilian, and contractor personnel.
Address Multi-Service and Multi-National Complexity, accounting for the additional oversight and coordination such a program requires.
Adapt to Changing Demands, from production ramps and modernization cycles to growing foreign sales.
Model Workload Drivers, including aircraft deliveries, software releases, sustainment operations, and funding profiles.
Forecast Workforce Trends, such as hiring bottlenecks, skill shortages, or attrition risks.
Enable Scenario-Based Planning for “what-if” situations tied to budget or mission changes.
During the Industry Day, the JPO outlined its key objectives for the manpower model, encouraging participants to explore innovative, validated approaches that can:
Determine Total Workforce Needs across functional areas such as engineering, logistics, contracting, program management, cybersecurity, and foreign military sales.
Justify Allocations by providing a defensible framework that clearly links workload to headcount—an essential step in communicating with Congress, the Services, and global partners.
Assess Workforce Mix across military, civilian, and contractor personnel.
Address Multi-Service and Multi-National Complexity, accounting for the additional oversight and coordination such a program requires.
Adapt to Changing Demands, from production ramps and modernization cycles to growing foreign sales.
Model Workload Drivers, including aircraft deliveries, software releases, sustainment operations, and funding profiles.
Forecast Workforce Trends, such as hiring bottlenecks, skill shortages, or attrition risks.
Enable Scenario-Based Planning for “what-if” situations tied to budget or mission changes.
Technical Considerations
Industry respondents were also asked to share methodologies that demonstrate:
Scalability and flexibility across aircraft variants, partner nations, and service-specific requirements.
Secure, cloud-based accessibility with role-based permissions and cybersecurity compliance aligned to DoD standards.
Data-driven decision support that integrates both quantitative metrics and qualitative inputs.
Analyst-friendly interfaces with strong visualization and reporting tools.
Unplanned workload modeling for emergent missions and operational surges.
Proven validation approaches, from peer reviews to benchmarking against operational outcomes.
By hosting this Industry Day, WBI provided a platform for government and industry to collaborate on one of the F-35 program’s most difficult challenges: ensuring the right people, with the right skills, are in place to sustain the Joint Strike Fighter for decades to come.
The insights gathered will inform the government’s path forward in developing a manpower model that is not only scalable and data-driven but also flexible enough to adapt to evolving mission priorities and international partnerships.
The F-35’s success depends not just on cutting-edge technology, but also on a workforce model capable of supporting a multi-service, multi-national program of unprecedented scale. Through its partnership with the JPO, WBI is helping shape innovative solutions that will sustain the F-35 enterprise well into the future.