Standard Automotive Tool Set: More than a New Tool Box Story by Charissa Nichole Gray, Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) WASHINGTON -- Unit mechanics must have their tools at hand to be able to keep unit vehicles operational. In the past, two tool sets provided most of these tools—Shop Equipment, Automotive, Maintenance and Repair, Organizational Maintenance, Common Number 1 and Common Number 2. These sets could come packaged in as many as 75 crates. Units had to purchase tool chests and cabinets for organizing the tools. The tools often became jumbled in drawers, making it difficult to find the ones needed to perform a task. Recognizing the problems that the available tool sets presented, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Ordnance initiated the development of a single containerized tool set. Developed by the Product Manager, Sets, Kits, Outfits, and Tools (PM SKOT), the resulting set is known as the Standard Automotive Tool Set (SATS). SATS is a containerized shop set system that consists of a core tool set and supplemental modules that can be tailored to a unit’s specific
The picture above shows the Tools in the Standard Automotive Tool Set (SATS) deployable container. The picture below shows the storage configuration of the SATS container. Photo courtesy of Product Manager for Sets, Kits, Outfits, and Tools.
maintenance mission. It replaces the most common organizational and direct support tool sets. SATS provides a more deployable, mobile, and mission-capable tool load that supports Army transformation and two-level maintenance. By providing Soldiers with a common tool set, SATS enables maintainers to perform two-level maintenance and repairs on all military vehicles and ground support equipment. The tools are easier to inventory, transport, and use than the old sets. The fielding of SATS eliminated 474 redundant or obsolete components and offers Fall 2012
units not only a lifetime warranty on the tools themselves, but a secure, protected container that is deployable. The goal during SATS development was to make it easier for maintenance Soldiers to inventory, transport, and use their tools led to the innovative container. With SATS, tools come to the user in tool cabinets that include PM SKOT’s standard foam cutout organization system. This makes SATS much more user friendly than the old automotive tool sets. The system reduces the tool set inventory time, for example, from more than 40 hours to only two hours for each tool set. Because the tools are kept in drawers with foam cutouts that give the tools specific storage locations, inventory is as easy as opening a drawer and looking for empty slots. By creating an organized tool set in a single container, PM SKOT also solved mobility problems. SATS can be transported by a single prime mover. It is more portable than its predecessors and can be deployed quickly with minimal preparation. 35