Ogden workers deliver record number of jets on time

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HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah (AFPN) --  Following a dramatic change in business practices, workers with the Ogden Air Logistics Center aircraft division here have made Air Force depot maintenance history. They returned an average of 97 percent of all repaired jets on or ahead of schedule this year.

“These extraordinary turn-around rates have (not) seen in Air Force depot-level repair in recent history,” said Col. Paul Davidson, aircraft division chief.

While Air Force Materiel Command’s on-time delivery goal for its depot maintenance centers is 90 percent, the aircraft division here is exceeding this goal in each of its aircraft repair branches. The division’s A-10 Thunderbolt II and C-130 Hercules shop workers are each completing their repairs 100-percent on time. The F-16 Fighting Falcon repair shops turn out aircraft, as scheduled, 94-percent of the time. The Ogden aircraft division also boasts a 62-percent zero-deficiency delivery rate.

“These numbers clearly show that we’re well on our way to reaching our vision to ‘Be America’s Best,’ sustaining warfighting capability at home and abroad,” said Maj. Gen. Kevin J. Sullivan, Ogden ALC commander.

“The high turn-around rates are a direct result of multiple process improvement initiatives under way within the aircraft division for the past several years,” Colonel Davidson said.

In fiscal 2000, Ogden’s aircraft division formed a process improvement team which used “Lean” methodologies to assess the work flow throughout the Utah facility. Lean is commonly used in private industry to streamline processes, cut waste and raise an organization’s overall value.

This process improvement team also asked division technicians what would help them do their jobs more effectively. The answer was simple: the Ogden maintenance technicians needed parts to be more readily available and located closer to where they work.

“Historically, we’ve done a mediocre job of getting aircraft back to customers on time,” said Dave Stevens, aircraft division deputy chief. “This is understandable, considering workers sometimes had to wait several months for parts to come in, or had to walk back and forth across a hangar to get tools one, or two, at a time. We set out to fix this problem.”

The process improvement team worked closely with the Ogden maintenance facility’s private-sector partners to ensure such items arrive at the aircraft division in advance of when they are needed. Division workers also reorganized their work areas by putting tools and supplies closer at hand.

These improvements have yielded dramatic decreases in production time throughout the aircraft division, officials said. For example, the A-10 Service Life Enhancement Program, designed to increase the aircraft’s longevity, is seeing a 132-percent reduction in turn-around time. Similarly, the F-16 and A-10 wing repair shops are seeing a 137-percent decrease in turn-around time.

The aircraft division has also reorganized its routine upgrade and modification program areas into “super” cells where maintenance now takes place on a strict schedule. The cellular process is expected to reduce the F-16 avionics upgrade -- the Common Configuration Improvement Program -- from 142 days to less than 100.