Civilian Corporations Reenergize Maintainers at AIRSpeed Forum
Navy NewsStand
Story Number: NNS080523-10
Release Date: 5/23/2008 12:37:00 PM
By Rusty Baker, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth Public Affairs
FORT WORTH, Texas (NNS) -- Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron (MALS) 41 and Fleet Readiness Center (FRC) West hosted an AirSpeed Symposium Industry Day for Sailors and Marines at the Naval Operational Support Center aboard Naval Air Station, Joint Reserve Base (NAS JRB) Fort Worth, May 6.
Among the representatives of corporations and organizations who spoke, were members of the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, maker of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; Celanese Corporation, a petrochemical company; Turbomeca-Safran Group, a leading manufacturer of gas turbine helicopter engines; and the George Group, a Six Sigma consulting group.
"This is an opportunity for us to refocus and have people from multinational corporations guide us through their best practices to show us that this is not just a Navy and Marine Corps phenomena," said Marine Capt. Chris Story, AIRSpeed representative for MALS-41.
AIRSpeed is the Navy and Marine Corps' terminology for a continuous process improvement. It is the enabler for 'operationalizing' cost-wise readiness across the naval aviation enterprise, according to the mission statement of Current Readiness, formerly known as Naval Aviation Readiness Integrated Improvement Program. This philosophy is a combination of the three most successful methodologies practiced in the business world commonly known as Six Sigma, Lean and the Theory of Constraints.
Current readiness describes Lean as a focus on the removal of waste, which is defined as anything not necessary to produce the product or service. Six Sigma is a process improvement strategy that uses quality improvement as the method for business improvement. The Theory of Constraints is a set of tools that examine the entire system for continuous process improvement based on the belief that any organization has at least one constraint and that any improvements on non-constraints may not yield as significant a return on investment as working on the constraint.
The outcome expected is to reduce the cost of Naval Aviation, support the Fleet Readiness Plan, improve logistics and maintenance cycle times, and place ownership and accountability at the appropriate levels.
As regional maintenance facilities have reorganized their infrastructure and the lion's share of the work has been passed down to intermediate-level maintenance facilities like MALS-41, work capacity increases while the amount of personnel remains the same.
"It's a huge paradigm shift on how we do maintenance," said Gunnery Sgt. Perry Fetterolf, MALS-41 production control supervisor and one of the key organizers of the day's symposium. "It all circulates on cost-wise effectiveness, which is less money at a higher tempo."
MALS-41 has been known for its top-quality service to flying squadrons, not only on board NAS JRB Fort Worth, but to its joint service customers all over the nation. Its integrated maintenance department of Sailors and Marines has already distinguished itself as a premier intermediate maintenance facility within 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, and now has excelled to first-degree repair for the T-56 engine.
The squadron now works with FRC West, also located at Fort Worth, adopting the concept to support reserve and active-duty flying squadrons with a repair-and-return process.
"I can tell a difference," said Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class Jody Wade, FRC West AIRSpeed Core Team tepresentative. "Work was always swamped on the [intermediate] level, then [AIRSpeed] design implementation was put in the workcenter, the work dissipated, and we had down time."
Bill Rozea, Director of Operating Excellence for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, has more than ten years of experience utilizing Lean, Six Sigma and Theory of Constraints and believes his corporation and the Naval Aviation Enterprise ultimately share the same goals.
"Just the fact that a full-day stand down was called, focused squarely on AIRSpeed, sends a clear and strong message that L/SS/TOC and continuous improvements are important to leadership," said Rozea.
For the past three years, the George Group has supported the Naval Aviation Enterprise in its journey to develop a sustainable continuous improvement program.
"The questions about AIRSpeed were outstanding from the Sailors and Marines who do the day-to-day work to keep aircraft mission ready," said Mark R. Stevens, George Group senior consultant.
"I'm a firm believer in AIRSpeed and think it's only going to improve us that much more," said Wade.
For more news from Naval Air Station, Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, visit www.navy.mil/local/nasjrbfw/.
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