By Vicky Falcón
NAVAIR Public Affairs Office

As the first NAVAIR Black Belt to focus his area of expertise on a Fleet process, David Theilacker is thrilled with his new tasking.

“Being the first NAVAIR AIRSpeed Black Belt to work directly with the Fleet is an awesome opportunity,” said Theilacker, P-3A/B and Derivatives Program Manager for the Maritime Patrol & Reconnaissance Aircraft Programs Office (PMA-290D6), and a JAX-1.0 Black Belt. “I get tremendous personal gratification being able to provide support to the Wing and squadron work centers.”

Theilacker isn’t the only one pleased with the opportunity.

According to CWO3 Henry Carrillo, AIRSpeed Officer for Wing 11 in Jacksonville, Fl., there is an increased energy level regarding AIRSpeed. “We’re all looking forward to implementing Lean Six Sigma at the organizational maintenance level so that we can reduce turn-around time for maintenance,” he said.

Turning NAVAIR AIRSpeed Black Belts into NAE Black Belts was a decision made by the NAE with concurrence from VADM Wally Massenburg, Commander, Naval Air Systems Command, and VADM James Zortman, Commander, Naval Air Forces.

“I believe the real leverage of the Black Belt is not within a stovepipe of activity where you’re leaning up a node, but it is cross functional; horizontally cross-functional across the entire enterprise,” said Massenburg. “That’s where you’re going to get the leverage.”

According to Massenburg, Black Belts become very valuable assets as they look at the value chain end to end.

“To look at an engine, a part, a piece of avionics coming off an aircraft, and go through the process of maintaining, or upgrading, or modernizing to the point where it is put back on the airplane – that’s the value chain,” he said, “And that value chain cuts across numerous stovepipes of activities.”

So, according to Massenburg, the power the Black Belts bring to the NAE is their ability to look at the entire value chain across the aviation enterprise and help produce exactly what is needed (and nothing extra) at reduced costs.

“We kicked off in-class training back in October and November for our squadrons,” said Carrillo. “This will be the first time, though, that we’ve had an opportunity to work with a Black Belt.”

Theilacker will provide oversight for squadron projects, which initially revolve around work center issues (such as making tools more readily available to the work centers), and will ultimately result in reducing overall maintenance cycle times.

“They were already pumped up and ready to go,” said Theilacker about the squadrons. “We’ve already kicked off a couple of events – all they needed was some guidance.”

His Black Belt guidance includes assistance with the organizing and documentation of a project. “Right now, we have completed a Kaizen event with significant results and we are continuing to set up charters with the squadrons utilizing Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) phases to document each event,” he said.

According to Theilacker, each phase of the project gets approved during regular tollgate reviews by the Executive Sponsor (the Wing Maintenance Officer) and the Project Sponsor (the Squadron Maintenance Officer).

Theilacker, who just graduated as a Black Belt last month, says he has been well received by the Wing and the squadrons. “They’re just happy to have someone come in and help them.”

For more information about NAVAIR AIRSpeed and AIRSpeed Black Belts, go to http://www.navair.navy.mil/navairairspeed/.