Ogden Air Logistics public affairs (July 24, 2006): Ogden Air Logistics Center earns Shingo Gold.

HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah -- Ogden Air Logistics Center's 573rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron took a page out of the "Process Improvement Handbook" and earned a Gold Level Shingo Prize for Excellence in the process, July 17.

The award, the second highest of four ratings available for excellence in public sector manufacturing, was earned by the squadron and support units in accomplishing depot-level maintenance of F-16 Fighting Falcons.

"The process included production, engineering, quality, business operations, flight testing and many other areas," said Dr. Chalon Keller, chief of Ogden ALC's Transformation Division. "Unlike last year, when just one product line of the squadron competed for the prize and earned a silver-level award, the entire F-16 maintenance enterprise competed and won gold."

Dr. Keller said all of the squadron's major and secondary programs were evaluated by the Shingo team this year.

"It represents a quantum leap forward in Lean implementation in just a single year," she said. "The modification programs include the Common Configuration Implementation Program, Falcon Structural Augmentation Roadmap, as well as full aircraft painting, unscheduled drop-in work, and Foreign Military Sales workloads. They wanted to see evidence that the squadron vigorously implemented world-class manufacturing strategies and business practices that achieved world-class results through the implementation of Lean techniques.

"In essence," Keller said, "the team was looking for widespread use and understanding of Lean principles. And they determined that the 573rd does just that--in a highly effective and sustained manner."

The team not only evaluated what most would think of as the traditional aspects of manufacturing, but also scored everything from the strategic vision provided by the ALC commander and budgetary process of the 309th Aircraft Maintenance Group, to the recognition program within the 573rd.

"This award recognizes every support agency and everyone throughout the F-16 value stream who contribute to producing a combat-ready F-16 for the warfighters throughout the Air Force," said Maj. Gen. Kevin Sullivan, Ogden ALC commander. "The complexity of F-16 maintenance and modification work done here makes this achievement that much more impressive."

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Col. Art Cameron, commander of the 309th Maintenance Wing, pointed out several improvements directly impacting customers and ALC work.

"Flow day reductions for the CCIP and Falcon STAR lines resulted in a savings of nearly $6 million for customers this fiscal year," he said, "and we haven't delivered a late aircraft back to a customer in over two years."

Because of increased efficiency, said Cameron, "we are operating with an hourly rate of about 20 percent below what was projected, while the number of safety flight defects reported by customers has also decreased--just two this year in nearly one million production hours.

"For the F-16 AMXS to compete and be awarded prizes in each of the past two years is the best validation our continuous process improvement efforts could hope to receive," said Cameron.

Yet, the 573rd, which falls under the 309th MXW, won't be resting on its past achievements.

"I want to lead the first public sector organization to become a Platinum recipient of the Shingo Prize," said Robert Hall, the 573rd AMXS director. "Not just to win the award, but because we know that in order to realize our full potential we must focus in a very disciplined manner on Lean every day. The result is our ability to continue to reduce cost, reduce flow days, and generally become a more efficient organization. That's good for us and our customers--we retain workloads because our customers are happy and create more capacity to bring in new workloads."

The Shingo Prize is recognized as the Nobel Prize for manufacturing excellence and is alongside the Deming Award and Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award in prestige and significance.

Until last year it was only open to private sector entities; the fact that it's now open to public sector organizations is validation that government agencies like the ALCs have made vast improvements in recent years.

Volb is with Ogden Air Logistics Center Public Affairs at Hill AFB, Utah.