By TRACY FIORE
NAVAIR Public Affairs Office

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, MD-The Reliability Centered Maintenance Team received the Department of Defense Value Engineering Award at the Pentagon June 6. The team was honored for implementing reliability centered maintenance on common support equipment that will enable the Navy to reduce total operations and maintenance costs up to $300 million over the next 15 years.

The award recipients included: Capt. Michael Hardee, Naval Air Systems Command Common Support Equipment Office; Thomas Bleazey, Brian Barr, Nancy Regan, Hal Farrell and Rich Nye, NAVAIR Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Divison, Lakehurst, N.J.; Ralph Holland, Naval Air Technical Data and Engineering Service Command; and William Deeley, SEMCOR.

Value engineering is a systematic process to analyze functions in hopes of identifying actions to reduce the production or operations cost of systems, equipment, facilities, services or supplies. The objective is to reduce total cost of ownership while retaining required system performance and quality.

The Value Engineering Awards Program acknowledges achievements and encourages projects to improve in-house and contractor productivity. A award winner from each DOD component was eligible for selection in the following seven categories: program management, individual/team, procurement/contract administration, value engineering professional, field command, installation and contractor. The RCM Team won the value engineering professional category.

The award was presented by Dave Oliver, principal under secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; Paul Schneider, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition; and Vice Adm. Joseph Dyer, commander, Naval Air Systems Command.

During the presentation, Oliver applauded those honored for the tremendous value of the accomplishments provided to DOD. "These are the people who do the real day-to-day work within our established system. Their efforts make it possible for DOD to provide unparalleled service and systems to the Fleet."

The team was tasked by NAVAIR's Common Support Equipment Office to analyze end item operation and support cost drivers contributing to the high cost of equipment ownership in the Fleet. From that list, the team had to identify a way to reduce the ownership cost.

Based on their analysis and their knowledge of modern maintenance technology, the team decided to perform reliability centered maintenance with a new twist. The team involved the Fleet and Fleet Support Teams. They used design engineers, maintenance engineers, Fleet operators and maintainers and logistics engineers in performing the necessary maintenance.

"In the past, the common support equipment team and the Fleet lacked an integrated methodology to properly evaluate the effectiveness of the established maintenance program," said Edward Waraksa, Design Interface Maintenance Planning Department head from Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, N.J. "Failure and maintenance data did not provide enough information for a good evaluation."

"The RCM team used lessons learned from major airlines, the Royal Navy and other sources to develop a sound analytical process designed to significantly reduce the cost of ownership for CSE," he added.

The team analyzed and questioned all possible safety, performance, environmental conditions and the cause and effect of all failure modes in relation to these criteria. Historical maintenance data and user input were also used to determine the most cost effective, safe maintenance plan.

"Using the available data and reliability centered maintenance methodology, the integrated team succeeded in not only reducing the cost of ownership, but also improved safety and readiness," Waraksa added.

Nine end items, totaling hundreds of units throughout the Fleet, have been completed with outstanding results. The new approach also identified numerous operation, maintenance, design and training defects causing excessive failures, maintenance man hours, spare parts usage, excess hazardous material disposal and poor readiness.

Jeff Lewis, NAWCAD Logistics director, complimented the RCM team on their achievements, noting the significant contributions to the Warfighter. "The team's efforts to maximize efficiency and reduce the maintenance burden to the Fleet are outstanding. Their value engineering analysis, as well as their exemplary team work helped reduce aviation maintenance and supply costs, increase readiness and provide systematic improvements to support Naval aviation in the 21st century."

As a result of their analysis, there is a decreased maintenance demand and a significant cost avoidance for the Fleet," continued Lewis. "The reduction in preventative maintenance hours, spare parts usage and hazardous material waste for thousands of common support equipment systems will result in a significant cost avoidance to the Fleet."

"They should be proud of their accomplishments," said Waraksa. "This is a tremendous honor which reflects the high caliber of work supporting the Fleet that our NAVAIR Team does."

-USN-