Depot shops serve as case study for AIRSpeed

By Kevin Suarez
NAVAIR Depot North Island

CORONADO, Calif. – NAVAIR Depot North Island Wheel Cell and the Rotodome Shop served as a case study during last month’s Executive Leadership Training (ELT) conference held at North Island.

The wheel cell inaugural selection as a “study case” was selected as a site for the ELT because the Depot has been performing the Lean processes for nearly a year. The Components Lean Team has redesigned the Wheel Cell to become more efficient. What used to take 94 days to complete a wheel now takes 26 days with a goal of achieving a 10-day turnaround time. Jack Braun (Code 4.3.5) assisted the ELT by describing the wheel repair process and describing the past and present state of wheel cell. Braun has been assisting with Lean events since they started in the wheel cell.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Rotodome Shop was selected because it is in its infancy stages of AirSpeed. The first event in the shop started in June. The rotodome has a different set of problems/challenges than that of the wheel cell: storage for both Ready-for-Issue and non-RFI antennae, plus moving the rotodome from one of seven stands many different times during the repair cycle and four trips to the Paint Shop to perform different functions. Luis Hernandez (Code 6.2.3) assisted the ELT on an explanation of the processes that the rotodome goes through during the repair cycle. Hernandez has been very enthusiastic in implementing the AirSpeed process in the Rotodome Shop.

Enterprise AIRSpeed began educating senior Navy and Marine Corps leaders with the Executive Leadership Training (ELT) program last January. The training is designed to involve senior naval aviation executives and create organic experts and competency to support, design and implement the fundamental skills promoted by AirSpeed.

The fundamental skills studied and employed include Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma. Commander Naval Air Forces typically hosts the events and follows all training and challenges the attendees to implement the tools they have learned, while simultaneously putting these leaders on notice that they will now operate and be measured in a cost-wise environment (the key new term being they will now be measured against their peers on how well they meet cost-wise readiness goals).

To date, there have been nine ELT sessions. There are about 30 to 40 participants in each session, mostly captains or colonels, or GS-14 and above rank (to include Navy and Marine Corps flag officers, Senior Executive Service, commanding officers of aircraft carriers, carrier air group and aircraft wing commanders, and a host of other senior leaders.

The participants are divided into work groups, visit local Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Departments, Marine Aircraft Logistics Squadrons, or depot organizations, and study their operations. They then develop plausible AIRSpeed solutions based on the training they received during their weeklong course.

The first two days of the class consisted of classroom instruction from experts in the AirSpeed community. The class was broken down into four groups on the third day and assigned a study case. North Island’s AIMD, Sailors from Light Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron 45, and the Depot Wheel Cell and the Rotodome Shop participated in the ELT training.

On the last day of the ELT, the groups came together and presented their findings and incorporated everything they learned the previous three days. Tenant commands and Depot employees were invited to the out briefs where processes were identified, physical maps produced, and an opportunities chart was presented. The out briefs were distributed to the participating work centers.

Retired Marine Brig. Gen. Ed Roberts, one of the AIRSpeed instructors said, “Sometimes there is a nugget or two that you can use.” This was a formidable experience for the Depot, and the third time that the ELT class had been conducted at North Island this year.
NAVAIR provides cost-wise readiness and dominant maritime combat power to make a great Navy and Marine Corps team better.

Suarez is assigned to the Components Strategic Business Team as the Avionics AIRSpeed action officer.