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.

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