Dover reservist initiates AFSO 21 overseas

Published March 21, 2008
By Master Sgt. Veronica A. Aceveda
512th Public Affairs

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- Aircraft maintenance initiatives with Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century are making their way to Rota Naval Air Station, Spain, thanks to efforts by a 512th Airlift Wing reservist.

Senior Master Sgt. Bryan Ford of the 512th Maintenance Group went to Rota in December to work with the 725th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron to jumpstart its AFSO 21 program at the request of the squadron commander, Lt. Col. Gary Grape.

"At the core of AFSO 21 are continuous process improvement initiatives such as Lean, Six Sigma and others," said Sergeant Ford. "It's a particular way of thinking about, seeing and improving the way work gets done."

During his four-day stay in December, Sergeant Ford taught Colonel Grape's entire executive staff and most of his mechanics - about 100 people - on lessons learned in the AFSO 21 process, including how different units embrace the Lean initiative at different speeds.

The idea for this endeavor came about in August 2006 when Sergeant Ford led a team of 14 reservists on a two-week deployment, supporting an en route mission at Rota NAS. En route stations such as Rota do not have assigned aircraft but have a lot of transient aircraft, including planes from Dover AFB.

While working there, the deployed team chief said he noticed how the aircraft support equipment was located at the opposite end of the flight line from where maintainers use the equipment. At home station, the equipment is positioned as close as possible to the planes.

Sergeant Ford said he spoke to a quality assurance inspector and the maintenance unit's superintendent about how Dover AFB was using AFSO 21 and Lean principles to identify and eliminate waste in its processes.

"As with any new program, the reception was cool at best, but the foundation for an ongoing relationship had started," he said.

A year later, Sergeant Ford led another team on a similar mission to Rota NAS. This time he came armed with educational tools from Dover AFB's AFSO 21 Phase 1 course, which teaches the basic principles of AFSO 21.

He provided that initial training to a small group of leaders. Unfortunately, he said it appeared they were not equipped to sustain the change because only a few people seemed to be on board with the culture change.

However, he had planted the idea for improvement, and later that year the 725th AMXS commander asked him to help implement AFSO 21 at Rota NAS.

"This time was profoundly different," said Sergeant Ford. "I could tell by the interest. They were ready for change."

One of the tenets of Lean transformation is the customer-supplier relationship. In aircraft maintenance, Sergeant Ford said it makes perfect sense to have a relationship with the en route stations.

"Everything we do here in maintenance is observed by the next link in the chain at Rota (NAS)," he said. "They see the direct results of the processes we have here at Dover, so it's important for us to exchange information. We need to speak the same language in a sense - the Lean language.

"It's intriguing to see how the subtle changes in the way Dover does business can dramatically affect how we maintain and sustain reliability at the en route location," said Senior Master Sgt. Dan O'Brien, the AFSO 21 program manager at Rota NAS.

Due to Sergeant Ford's vision and persistence, a groundbreaking AFSO 21 alliance is under way between Dover AFB and Rota NAS. (Air Force Reserve Command News Service)