Altus AFSO21 initiative improves C-17 inspection process Published June 10, 2009 By Senior Airman Clinton Atkins 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- The Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century program office teamed up with the 97th Maintenance Directorate improving the way Altus AFB performs home station checks on C-17 Globemaster IIIs. The team performed a study on maintenance operations and quickly found room for improvement following the May 1 implementation. The combined efforts put Altus AFB on track to increase C-17 aircrew training by more than 1,000 flying hours annually. "We searched back three years and found out our home station checks took an average of 17 days to complete, and I challenged our people to reduce it to 10 days," said Carl Martin, 97th Maintenance Directorate deputy director. One of the key changes made was to the home station check starting day -- starting the flow on a Monday night instead of a Friday -- significantly reducing unnecessary wait time by two days. "Before the improvements, the aircraft would perform its last sortie on a Friday, and it would sit over the weekend," he said. "Sunday night we would put it in the wash rack, and the plane would be washed Monday and Tuesday. After the wash, the aircraft wouldn't be inspected for another 12 hours or so." Other changes to the inspection process included leveling the workload among shifts, eliminating a handoff and reworking a checklist, helping turn the home station check process into a seamless chain of events. "The way we do it now is the plane finishes its last sortie on a Monday and into the wash on the same day," Mr. Martin said. "Once they get the plane into the inspection dock, they work on it continuously through the day, mid and swing shifts during the repair and inspection cycle." The maintainers also contributed to the decrease in wait time by better anticipating the need for aircraft parts, he said. After the inspection process is complete, the aircraft's engines have to be tested. Before, the aircraft would wait overnight for a backline run crew to test the aircraft. "Now, we make sure we have people there to perform the engine and hydraulic checks right away," Mr. Martin said. "The aircraft is never sitting around anymore." The improvements the 97th Maintenance Directorate has made so far are a direct result of working smarter, and there is room to get even better, he said. "There is always room to make improvements so we're going to see if we can reduce the wait time even further," Mr. Martin said. After a scheduled unit compliance inspection in September, the AFSO21 office and the 97th Maintenance Directorate will take another hard look at the home station check process. "You can yield significant benefits to the taxpayers and the Air Force by continuously looking at a process over and over again, and then setting the right control mechanisms in place to make sure it doesn't revert back to the past behaviors," said Dennis Scott, AFSO21 facilitator. Even though a goal has not been set for the next AFSO21 improvement, Mr. Scott said they will most likely aim for a 10 to 20 percent reduction in completion time.