New processes save time for war fighter

  • Published
  • By Geoff Janes
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  With a little planning and a lot of good old fashioned common sense, Airmen from the 100th Air Refueling Wing Logistics Readiness Squadron are working smarter these days.

According to Chief Master Sgt. Brian Ward, LRS Vehicle Flight manager, using the principles of Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, or AFSO21, his people were able to cut the time it takes for vehicle maintenance from four days to two - the long-term plan is to get it down to a matter of hours.

AFSO21 is a term coined by Air Force senior leadership to represent not only a program to standardize continuous process improvement across the service, but also to describe a new way of thinking about the way the Air Force does business.

"We started out about three months ago," Chief Ward said of the revamping efforts. "We focused on improving our processes, not just for ourselves or even for the customer, but because we need to be as efficient as possible."

To do that, the unit began looking at its tire shop and scheduled maintenance processes.

"We wanted to cut down on the amount of time the vehicles were away from the customer," Chief Ward said.

A tiring job no more

Looking at the day-today processes of the tire shop, they were able to point out a couple of key issues that needed to be addressed.

First, the mechanics who maintain tires were 150 feet from the tire shop area, and second, the equipment wasn't set up in the order of how it was used causing the mechanic to have to walk back and forth to take care of the tires.

Chief Ward said they decided to rearrange the tire shop, but because the large tire mounter relies on an electrical source that couldn't quickly be moved across the building they decided to make immediate improvements in place.

The Airmen spent $9.66 on anchor bolts, moved the equipment into a logical arrangement and were able to cut passenger and light truck process flow from 82 feet to 48 feet - a 59 percent improvement.

They were also able to reduce the heavy tire process from 88 feet to 52 feet - a 52 percent improvement. Chief Ward said that although the improvements are significant, there is still more to be done. His goal is to move the entire tire shop's operation across the building right behind the customer service counter and to add an revolving tire rack that will make it safer and easier for maintainers to pull the tires they need.

Time for a tune up

After tackling the tire shop, members of the vehicle maintenance flight then focused their attention on the scheduled maintenance process to reduce turnaround time for the customer.

The unit schedules about five vehicles a day. Everything from golf carts to aircraft towing vehicles comes through the shop on a routine basis.

According to Chief Ward, when he looked at the maintenance checklist there was no logical flow of work to be done. The original document was written so that a maintainer would check random areas of the vehicle rather than following a logical pattern of maintenance.

To overcome that, the process was flowcharted with each step evaluated for value and efficiency. The process was then revised to eliminate some steps and modify others to improve efficiency.

Vehicles are identified coming due for scheduled maintenance the last week of the month prior to being scheduled and the vehicles are then assigned an appointment time.

Further, commonly replaced parts (oil, air filters) are checked prior to the vehicle arriving to ensure they are on hand. If parts are not available, the vehicle is rescheduled for a later time in the month to eliminate unnecessary down time.

The vehicle inspection checklist was modified so the mechanic works logically and efficiently from around the outside (body, tires, lights) to the inside (gauges, seatbelts, seats) and finally the major mechanical inspections are done once the vehicle is in the shop. As a result, the regular scheduled maintenance time was cut in half.

Chief Ward said the changes were simple ones, and all it takes to fix problems is to follow the Airmen who work in the shop daily to see the problems they run into.

"A lot of people think they can't do this type of thing without some sort of formal approval," he said. "All it takes is someone in the shop who is familiar with the process and who can come up with ideas. A lot of the best ideas come from the workers themselves."