IDEA program awards technical order savvy

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Darrell Lewis
  • Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFPN) --  Two equipment specialists here are saving the Air Force more than $140,000 through a suggestion to stop digitizing certain technical orders for an aircraft system that is headed for retirement.

Michael Simmons and Calvin Haugen submitted the suggestion using the Innovative Development through Employee Awareness program. They will share a cash award of $10,000. Both are assigned to the logistics directorate’s accessories division here.

In the past 40 years, the C-141 Starlifter became the backbone of military airlift capability and a national asset whose workload is now being transferred to the C-17 Globemaster III.

The C-141 phase-out began in fiscal 2002 when the fleet stood at more than 100 aircraft. The fleet had dropped to 50 aircraft by last summer when the IDEA submission was made. By the end of 2005, there will be no active C-141 aircraft in service.

Since the C-141 is being phased out of service, converting hardcopy commodity tech orders into digital format accessible via computer was seen by Mr. Simmons and Mr. Haugen as unnecessarily expensive to the Air Force.

A commodity tech order tells maintenance workers how to tear down, inspect and reassemble a part. Mr. Simmons and Mr. Haugen manage several dozen C-141 orders used for overhaul or repair. They do the same for E-3 Sentries, C/KC-135 Stratotankers, B-52 Stratofortresses and other large aircraft.

It was estimated that it cost about $22 to digitize each page of a TO. While some of the orders for the C-141 had already been converted digitally, Mr. Simmons and Mr. Haugen were able to halt the conversion of 155 tech orders, saving the Air Force an estimated $141,340.

During the digitization process, the hardcopy pages are copied and sent to a contractor who scans them to a digital format to be made available to maintenance personnel via their local computer system.