To identify and develop strategies to improve business practices within the Naval Aviation Enterprise (NAE), Fleet Readiness Center Southwest (FRCSW) hosted Navy and Marine Corps senior leadership May 11 for a Boots-on-the-Ground (BOG) visit to Naval Air Station North Island.

The intent of BOG is to provide leadership a direct view of AIRSpeed and continuous process improvements (CPI) that have been initiated within the NAE maintenance and supply sectors.

Maj. John DiGiovanni, CPI lead at Headquarters, Marine Corps Aviation Logistics Support Branch (ASL) 40, said that the replication of
best practices throughout the enterprise are paramount to improvement, and that there will be barriers to overcome when implementing process replications.

“It’s not part of our culture to take a great idea someone else had, and accept it as our own and bring it forward. Everybody is doing things a little bit different,” DiGiovanni stated.

“During a BOG at Yuma we started seeing some trends of good practices that, for example, may not exactly fit each facility in how we set the processes in place at the organizational and intermediate levels,” noted Vice Adm. Allen Myers, Commander, Naval Air Forces.

The replication process will depend upon five requirements: Establishment of an SOP as to what is a replicable project or event; chain of command involvement; the Continuous Process Improvement Management System (CPIMS); and recognition and promulgation.

“The CPIMS will be used to measure the effectiveness of the replication process,” DiGiovanni said. “An example would be taking the BOG to Marine Air Logistics Squadron (MALS) 24 and developing a metrics specifically addressing the response time of delivering parts to the flight line. That metric is taken through leadership support, made into a MALS enterprise metric, and promulgated out through policy so that every MALS will use that metric as to how we are supporting the flight line.”

A group of commands will soon be selected to participate in a replication pilot program, DiGiovanni added.

Citing potentially smaller DOD budgets aimed to trim the federal deficit, Lt. Gen. Terry Robling, USMC Deputy Commandant for Aviation, said the FRCs stand to benefit from the NAE process.

“We find a lot of efficiencies and cost-avoidance through the NAE process,” Lt. Gen. Robling noted.

Robling said that FRCSW’s point-of-usage and kitting of tools to specific areas of aircraft maintenance exemplifies the efficient work flow procedures that can conserve money and manpower, and may be applied from the depot through the organizational level.

“FRCSW is probably the crown jewel of the FRCs in my view. I say that a little parochial because I was the commanding general at 3rd MAW up the road at (NMCS) Miramar and have had a very close relationship with them,” Robling said.

“The enthusiasm from the FRC down to the squadron level really impressed me. Everybody was excited about doing the right thing for the customer --- from the men and women who fly the aircraft, to the lance corporals and seaman who work with them. So, if we’re providing a product that everyone is happy with after all of the hard work and money that we put into it, then we’ve done our job,” he said.