56th MXG earns excellence award

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Phillip Butterfield
  • 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  The 56th Maintenance Group earned the Air Education and Training Command 2007 Chief of Staff Team Excellence Award June 8, by improving Luke's F-16 Fighting Falcon cannibalization processes. 

Luke's mission is to train the world's greatest F-16 fighter pilots and maintainers, while deploying mission ready warfighters. The MXG supports this mission by providing maintenance on 191 F-16s producing more than 35,000 sorties and 50,000 flight hours per year for the Air Force's only active-duty F-16 training wing. 

"Due to this tight training schedule the mission-capable aircraft become extremely important in meeting mission requirements," said Maj. Michael Allison, 756th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron operations officer. "Efforts to keep up with aircraft availability and high operations tempo drove MXG supervision to look for ways to increase availability of MC aircraft." 

The cannibalization process was chosen as an opportunity for process improvement. The purpose of the CANN process is to compensate for shortfalls in the supply system by using a designated aircraft to offset nonavailability of spare parts. 

In June 2005, before process improvement, there were six aircraft in CANN status, one for each aircraft maintenance unit. 

AMUs controlled their own aircraft, geographically separated from the others, with no overall control of the process. This approach resulted in lengthy rebuilds, inconsistent manning allocation, little continuity between aircraft, poor post-CANN flight success and numerous forms documentation errors. Change was needed, Major Allison said. 

The MXG's lean team identified six areas of the process for significant improvements.
Separating CANN docks, control of the process; rebuild times, continuity of manning,
poor post-CANN flight success and documentation errors. 

Each of these six areas was tested, evaluated and prioritized. The previous process had six aircraft in CANN status at any given time. Depending on hangar availability, jets were scattered across the flightline in various stages of teardown, with some located on the ramp while others were located in separate hangars. 

During rebuild, available manning was pulled from resources needed to launch and recover other aircraft within the AMUs, which impacted overall mission effectiveness.  This limited manpower, because it was tactically allocated, resulted in inconsistent performance and unnecessary duplication of effort. Additionally, there was greater potential for documentation errors because several personnel were working on the aircraft forms during the CANN period. 

From January to November 2006 the process was changed from six aircraft in CANN status to only four. Given the success of the process at this point, further improvement potential was recognized. To facilitate this drastic reduction, a single CANN dock was created. 

The reduced number of aircraft and manhours used in the CANN process provided better oversight, increased continuity and alleviated the strain on the base-wide supply process. 

"This project will save more than $100 million," said Maj. Kevin Traw, 756th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron commander. "It will free up more time, aircraft and resources than any other project in the MXG."