Corrosion costs the DoD much more than just money.

Photo by Charles Rosemond

It’s estimated the financial cost of corrosion to the DoD is $20 billion annually. To put things in perspective, that’s $55 million per day, or $39,000 per minute.

It’s hard to imagine, but those dollar figures represent just a portion of the total cost of corrosion. What’s not included in that $20 billion figure are costs that may be harder to quantify, but are nonetheless real costs:

Readiness

How do you quantify what it costs when an asset isn’t ready to respond when called on? Mission delays and/or cancellations are enormously costly and also impact morale.

Opportunity Costs

Where else could those funds be spent? The dollars spent repairing/replacing corrosive equipment could be spent instead on modernization, new programs, facilities upgrades, etc.

How else could those maintenance hours be spent? All the hours spent inspecting, repairing, sourcing, replacing corroded parts and components could be spent on doing more diagnostics, or more preventive maintenance - things that could improve performance and soldier safety.

Cost of Shortened Lifecycles

When a critical asset falls short of its expected lifecycle, there are a host of costs associated with it being taken out of service - cost of replacement, costs of disposal, administrative costs, and more. 

Soldier Safety

Corrosion is understood to be a common source of often undetected problems with electronics and avionics which can result in incorrect instrument readings, instrument failure, and system failure. 

Degraded Performance

Critical assets now rely on sophisticated technology which is highly susceptible to corrosion because less material means even small amounts of corrosion can be disproportionally damaging. But even things like delaminated glass (caused by UV damage and extreme temperatures) decrease an asset’s performance. 

Corrosion mitigation/prevention measure have been shown to have ROI as high as 67%. If you factor in all the other related costs, it becomes even more attractive.

For more information about the savings you can achieve with innovative corrosion-prevention solutions, give us a call or contact us to learn more.

The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.