Last modified Wed., November 15, 2006 - 03:54 PM
Originally created Thursday, November 16, 2006

FRCSE wins maintenance excellence award

By Judy Hartman, FRCSE Public Affairs Specialist

From left, Rear Adm. Michael Hardee, Chair of the Joint Group on Depot Maintenance and Commander for Fleet Readiness Centers, Naval Air Forces, Don Brown, John Crumpley, Alicia Cedillo and Neil Williams of the F404 Performance Base Logistics team, at the Department of Defense Maintenance Symposium. Photo courtesy of FRCSE

The F404 Perform-ance Base Logistics (PBL) team from Fleet Readiness Center, Southeast (FRCSE) has won the Joint Depot Maintenance Excellence Team Award presented by the Joint Depot Mainten-ance Activities Group on behalf of the Joint Group-Depot Maintenance (JG-DM) at the annual Depart-ment of Defense Mainte-nance Symposium in Reno, Nev.

Individuals on the F404 PBL Team included Alicia Cedillo, Donald Warner, Wesley Johnson, Cecilee Hall, James Borgmeier, Neil Williams and John Crumply.

This new award, created on behalf of the JG-DM, recognizes contributions to further depot maintenance support to the nation's weapon systems and acknowledges outstanding individual and team contributions to the joint depot maintenance community.

The F404 PBL team distinguished itself through outstanding performance in the implementation of the F404 PBL Engine Maintenance program. The team re-engineered the material supply/maintenance chain resulting in a significant savings of $79M total ownership costs. The reengineered supply support and repair production processes have been exported to other depot component repair programs.

The maintenance program for the F404 engine, which powers the F/A-18 Hornet, has historically presented significant availability challenges to the warfighter and the naval logistics community. The solution was to create a public-private partnership between industry and maintainers for the repair and overhaul of 38 major engine components.

Industry provides the program management, replacement parts, forecasting, warehousing, transportation and technology insertion. The maintainers provide the skilled artisan labor, facilities, and equipment.

This is an example of leveraging and integrating commercial and government best practices. The F404 PBL team's contract delivers improved logistics support by restructuring the way F404 engine components are acquired, overhauled and maintained.

During the first two years of the F404 PBL performance, all required contractual performance metrics were exceeded. FRCSE delivered 99 percent first pass material availability on all fleet requisitions, up from 43 percent.

Fleet backorders were reduced by 100 percent, from 718 to 0. High priority (issue group one) backorders were reduced by 100 percent, from 436 to 0, all of which substantially reduced work in process to ensure the right products at the right cost at the right time are delivered.

The F404 Aircraft Engine PBL team delivered improved Navy warfighter support by utilizing innovative logistic, maintenance and acquisition strategies.

The process analysis and reinvention efforts resulted in a fixed price agreement that delivers an inclusive supply chain solution for support of Navy F404 engine components, increased fleet material availability and reduced cost to the Navy.

The F404 maintainers require an uninterrupted supply of reliable and economically priced engine components.

The efforts of the F404 team delivered availability by reducing repair turn around time from 120 to 47 days. The F404 PBL team established the contract to deliver component support to the F404 community and reduced fleet total ownership cost by $79 million or 13.8 percent during the initial term of the contract.

The PBL contract harnessed the single integrator approach to the many tasks supporting component repair at FRCSE.