TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. —
The 544th Propulsion Upkeep Squadron’s F135 Heavy Upkeep Heart received the Robert T. Mason Award for Depot Upkeep Excellence, which was offered on the awards banquet held along with 2022 DoD Upkeep Symposium on the Orange County Conference Heart in Orlando, Florida on December 13, 2022.
The squadron competed with 9 different depot-level applications from all DoD Navy Providers.
“The 544th’s engaged management and exact utility of the Air Power Sustainment Heart’s “Artwork of the Attainable” manufacturing administration methodology mixed to dramatically enhance F135 engine manufacturing,” stated Maj. Gen. Jeff King, Oklahoma Metropolis Air Logistics Advanced commander. “I am pleased with the crew for taking house this well-deserved DoD award.”
The F-35 Lightning II confronted unexpected engine challenges, inflicting a big portion of the fleet to be grounded, and the 544 PMXS F135 Heavy Upkeep Heart answered the decision for assist.
In January 2021, it took a mean of 244 days to restore an F135 engine that suffered a situation requiring an unscheduled elimination, and the store might solely work on 12 energy modules concurrently. Leveraging concept of constraints ideas, the manufacturing crew knew they wanted to scale back move days to 122 per engine and enhance manufacturing capability to concurrently work 21 energy modules.
The crew used Artwork of the Attainable, a singular mix of concept of constrains and steady course of enchancment strategies, to seek out constraints and implement options. The method was instrumental in lowering move days from 244 to only 105.
The crew began by scripting your complete restore course of and grouped like actions into gates, then additional sequenced actions by defining micro-gates to optimize manufacturing actions. This course of recognized manufacturing constraints, akin to lack of apparatus, technician coaching, materiel shortages, joint technical information shortfalls, delayed engineering response occasions, and extra.
The crew aggressively engaged with companions on the F-35 Joint Program Workplace and Pratt & Whitney to shut the gaps. By December 2021, the crew eradicated 100 move days and shaved 38 extra by Could 2022. In whole, the crew decreased F135 Energy Module (which is the guts of the engine) move days to a mean of 105 days; a 60 p.c quicker return to warfighters.
“The crew elevated Energy Module output from 14 in 2020 to 51 in 2021 and 73 in 2022” stated David Herrera, 544th Propulsion Upkeep Squadron director. “That displays an estimated 27 p.c enhance over 2021 and a 400 p.c enhance over 2020’s manufacturing whole.”
Ms. Bobby Hager, 76th Propulsion Upkeep Group Deputy Director added, “The F135 HMC is the most important and most able to the seven F135 depot community nodes, and it’s at present this system’s solely natural depot-level restore exercise. The unit repairs greater than half of all of the F135 engines for the Air Power and our Navy, Marine and Accomplice Nation counterparts. There is no such thing as a doubt the F135 HMC’s speedy enhance in manufacturing was pivotal in lowering 48 F-35s grounded awaiting an engine in 2021 to only two by mid-December 2022.”
