AFSO21 changes Luke's external fuel tank roles

  • Published
  • By Robert Zoellner
  • 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  The 56th Maintenance Group recently spearheaded an Air Force Smart Operations 21 F-16 external fuel tank project using LEAN tools and listening to the voice of the customer which resulted in saved time and money.

A team formed in July made up of staff sergeants and below was tasked with unraveling the issues that were causing concerns to leadership, their customers and workers with fuel tank operations at Luke. By reviewing every aspect of the current process and searching for ways to improve the handling and reliability of those operations, professionals from the fuel shop, plans and scheduling, supply and crew chiefs put the LEAN processes to the test.

Team members identified waste, used value stream mapping, flow and pull undamentals and provided recommendations for process improvement that are still being instituted today.

"I've seen typical projects that haveon average about five to seven areas of improvement for implementation," said Master Sgt. Scott McKnight, 56th Maintenance Group AFSO21
superintendent and team facilitator. "But this one had twenty one."

All areas that touched fuel tank operations were looked at, from the tank being removed from the aircraft for repair, to the Interactive Maintenance Data System computer system used for the management of maintenance actions for the F-16.

Sergeant McKnight said nothing was overlooked, and five technical order changes resulted from the clean slate thinking, several of which were worked on with depot and approved.

One major outcome from the project resulted in changing the ownership of the tanks to the repair facility, which systematically allows the team to reduce the number of tanks by 247.

"This was a 40 percent reduction in work," Sergeant McKnight said.

Fifty-one tanks were placed in storage on the first day.

The time saved in annual inspection maintenance alone is more than 3,600 hours with a labor cost savings of $110,000.

"The tank repair facility was not comfortable with the idea of owning the tanks at first," Sergeant McKnight said. "But the amount of tanks could not be reduced without them stepping up."

From lessons learned using LEAN, Sergeant McKnight said the MXG plans to share their ideas and changes with other Luke units and around the Air Force.

"Our future goal is to invite the foreign military services here to use our tanks and place theirs in storage which allows us to reduce our number of tanks even lower," Sergeant McKnight said.

The maintenance group has even created a "community of practice site" located in the "knowledge now" site on the Air Force Portal called F-16 Maintenance AFSO21.

AFSO21 has been a success with the maintenance group at Luke with more than a dozen projects completed this year. The fuel tank facility now has to perform the annual inventory inspection but there was a big payoff. The maintenance group's initial goal was not set or mandated to reduce tanks but using LEAN thinking, they were able to see a huge and achievable benefit.

"Everyone is invited to review our successes," Sergeant McKnight said. "We are hoping they will be able to implement them into their daily routines and post their own successes to share with others."