Robins Air Force Base officials confirmed Thursday the award of a $400 million base-year delivery order to Boeing Company for continued support of the world-wide C-17 cargo fleet.

Boeing is the original manufacturer of the four-engine strategic airlifter.

The delivery order has a base year and four additional, one-year options totaling $2 billion, according to Robins spokesperson Christine Miner. It is part of a ten-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract awarded to Boeing last October.

The action covers support for 223 C-17s in the U.S. Air Force inventory and 23 Globemasters operated by foreign countries.

Robins is host to the C-17 combined program office manned by 196 Boeing and Air Force civilian and military workers. Officials indicated that the latest delivery order likely would increase local Boeing manning by 25 workers.

Just last month, the public-private partnership won the 2012 Secretary of Defense Gerald R. Beck Performance Based Logistics Award for the system level category. According to a Robins press release, the team used a “virtual fleet” construct to pool and position spare parts and services to support 55,000 C-17 sorties and more than 220,000 flying hours during the year, maintaining an overall 86 percent aircraft in-commission rate. In addition, the team cut flying hour costs by ten percent through examining demand patterns and repositioning buy and repair processes.

Gus Urzua, Boeing’s vice president and program manager at Robins, said in a press statement, “This contract award and the recognition from the secretary of the defense are testaments to the long-standing partnership between the U.S. Air Force and Boeing.”

In a performance based logistics arrangement, the Air Force receives an agreed-to level of system readiness rather than specified spare parts and support services.