F100 Engine Shop Lost Nearly $16 Million Before July '08
In July 2008, Mr. Brian deFonteny, Black Belt Center
Transformation Office project facilitation, enlisted Michelle
Waggoner, 547th Propulsion Maintenance Squadron industrial
engineering technician, and her team -- Joseph Auzenne, Holly
Vernon, Mitch Salvo, Shawna Price, Tracy Kudrna and John Manning --
to determine why the 76th Propulsion Maintenance Group's F100
engine Fan Blade Shop lost nearly $16 million during an 18-month
period.
He also asked her to find a solution, using Air Force Smart
Operations for the 21st Century tools, to keep it from happening
again.
Not only did Ms. Waggoner and her team identify the root cause
of the problem, but devised an action to significantly reduce
costs. To date, the unit's ability to accurately execute the
process is up by 40 percent.
"Supply management and parts integrity are a critical area of
our business," Ms. Waggoner said. "Simple mistakes in procedure can
cost the government and ultimately the taxpayers millions of
dollars."
Prior to the discovery and fix, the team discovered fan blade
shop personnel had over-ordered parts. As some parts were tested
and calibrated, other pieces were ordered without the knowledge of
everyone working on the engine. As a result, the actual replacement
parts exceeded the projected replacement percentage.
To correct the problem, the team mapped the process, collected
data and analyzed it. In doing so, they realized the true problem:
the process of requesting, ordering and receiving fan blades and
vanes.
"It was a very confusing process, and because of the previous
ordering structure, over and under-ordering of required fan blades
for each F100 engine was inevitable," Mr. deFonteny said.
Waggoner agreed.
"Nobody really knew what the process was," she said. "The
process had been adjusted so many times, that special cause now
became common cause. By mapping the entire process and performing
data analysis, the broader picture became evident."
"After six weeks of very intense research, the light bulb
finally came on," Ms. Waggoner said.
Ms. Waggoner said there were a lot of assumptions made as to how
parts were ordered. Because the material issue request form is not
electronically processed, there were several risks inherent with
processing the paper request. They include the copy getting lost,
damaged, destroyed by a liquid spill and not duplicated, more than
one form is completed for a part or the paper is lost in
transit.
By eliminating the number of requests processed throughout the
procedure, Ms. Waggoner said, the number of errors that could occur
dropped from five times to just two.
"This was not just people randomly inserting hunches for fixes,"
Mr. deFonteny said. "It was a very structured data-driven AFSO21
project resulting from the training received here at Tinker."
Ms. Waggoner said although a significant improvement was made,
the key is to monitor the processes and make sure shop personnel
remain focused on the revised course of action.
"I hope the culture of continuous improvement becomes ingrained,
because there's always room for improvement," said Waggoner.