EDITORS NOTE: This is one of six articles which can be updated by NAVAIR site to include local team participants.

By Marina Sanchez, NAVAIR Public Affairs

Vice Adm. Joe W. Dyer, NAVAIR commander, presented the NAVAIR Commander's Award for Business Strategy to the H-1 Integrated Maintenance Team at the recent Commander's Award ceremony at Patuxent River.

The team has been working for four years with more than 300 people. Dyer showed his appreciation for the team commenting, "The Integrated Maintenance Concept has recently been recognized as a hallmark way of doing business."

The team, led by Scott Nast at NAVAIR Cherry Point, had the task of optimizing the Standard Depot Level Maintenance process, which is an aircraft restoration project. The project had become too expensive and unpredictable due to the repeated deferments, increasing necessary repairs on the aircraft. The team aimed to change the process and make it more predictable and preventive, as opposed to restorative.

The H-1 IMC team succeeded in the adoption of the new program and the installation of IMC, ensuring the "right maintenance at the right place, by the right people," according to Nast. IMC assures a shorter turnaround time by conducting zonal maintenance (specific sub-sections of the aircraft are worked on as oppose to the entire aircraft) at fixed intervals, and by performing the work at locations closer to the operators than the depot.

The team also produced a work guide to ensure harmony between the four main repair facilities, which include NAVAIR Cherry Point, N.C.; Corpus Christi Army Depot, Tex.; NAVAIR North Island, Calif.; and the Naval Air Pacific Repair Activity, Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan. The guide also provides necessary data required to watch and measure maintenance accomplished at these sites.

Accepting the reward on behalf of the team, Lt. Col. Tim Junette, Pax River, PMA-276, H-1 Attack and Utility Helicopter Program, assistant program manager for logistics, emphasized the importance of the renovation and the team. "Instead of restoring aircraft back to their original material condition, we're preventing them from degrading; by doing that, we're giving the fleet a better aircraft," he said.

Photo by Kurt Langfield

Photo caption: Tim Junette accepts the Commander's Award from Vice Adm. Joe Dyer as Rear Adm. Johnston stands by.