TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. —
Secretary of the Air Power Frank Kendall visited Tinker Air Power Base on July twenty eighth for an replace on the bottom’s assist to the F-35 Lightning engine program.
Kendall acquired an replace on F135 engine upkeep and modernization previous to receiving a first-hand have a look at the F135 engine restore line, housed throughout the Oklahoma Metropolis Air Logistics Complicated — the Division of Protection’s largest upkeep, restore and overhaul exercise supporting a various plane, engine and software program workload for the Air Power, Navy and Companion Nations. The OC-ALC is a part of a public-private partnership with Pratt & Whitney, which establishes the framework for offering upkeep on the F135 engine.
His tour of the F135 engine restore line highlighted the restore course of and showcased quite a few course of enhancements carried out by the 76th Propulsion Upkeep Group to scale back manufacturing instances from 244 days in 2021 to a present common of 105 days.
The OC-ALC management group can also be centered on discovering revolutionary methods to chop total prices of sustainment for the F-35’s engines.
“The efforts by the women and men of the Oklahoma Metropolis Air Logistics Complicated to restore F135 engine modules sooner and extra effectively is starting to handle the hole between the place F-35 sustainment at the moment is and the place it must be,” stated Kendall. “These professionals and their revolutionary approaches will assist us meet the calls for of our nation’s safety.”
The Oklahoma Metropolis Air Logistics Complicated acted shortly to extend its capability to accommodate an sudden quantity of F135 engines and complexity of repairs, each of which exceeded what the depot had been activated to assist at the moment. With the help of Artwork of the Doable, a constraints-based administration system, constraints have been shortly recognized and mitigated, leading to dramatically improved assist for the warfighter.
“Via using Artwork of the Doable, we recognized workload bottlenecks that slowed F135 manufacturing and got down to discover revolutionary options to eradicate them,” stated Col. Timothy Beck, Commander of the 76th Propulsion Upkeep Group. “Modifications have been made to virtually each side of the processes so as enhance manufacturing capability and cut back move time. We made vital enhancements to the inspection course of, technician coaching, engineering response instances, technical knowledge, tooling and even the design of the store ground – and we’re not finished enhancing the method.”
The method enchancment efforts enabled OC-ALC to develop its F135 workforce from 79 simply over a yr in the past to 103 right this moment, and with extra hiring rounds to come back because the unit doubles its manufacturing capability over the following few years.
Kendall additionally made time to acknowledge and coin a number of excellent Airmen doing nice issues at Tinker, earlier than departing Tinker to proceed his journey which included further stops at Nellis Air Power Base and Creech Air Power Base.
