Steve Roberts, Duke Carter and Milford Towne, from left, work on the LM2500. Photo by Danny McGehee

Dante Aquino uses a wrench to tighten bolts on an LM2500 engine. Photo by Bill Bartkus

Naval Air Depot North Island drastically reduces turnaround time in LM2500 engine program

By Bill Bartkus
NAVAIR Depot North Island

NORTH ISLAND - Naval Air Depot North Island has revolutionized its turnaround time on the LM2500 engine program. The facility has been constantly reducing turnaround time for working on the engines for the last five fiscal years.

“Our internal goal for the gas generator engine for the rest of this year is 100 days. Currently, our turnaround time is 118 days,” said Fred Jolly, Code 6.2.2, LM2500 engine program director. The turnaround time on the power turbine portion (the back of an LM2500) is currently at 46 days, down from 235 days in fiscal year 98.” He attributes the program’s successful, faster turnaround time to people, processes and material.

“The artisans are the same, and some of them were with the Depot when the (LM2500) program started in 1976,” said Jolly. “They have a great deal of experience, and they know this engine better than anyone else.”

The support staff has changed, according to Jolly. “Two engineers, Rich King and Rich Eidsmoe, (both Code 4.4) have been here for some time, and they have a vast knowledge of the engine. They bring a technical perspective to the engine program that I believe is unsurpassed anywhere,” said Jolly. Between the artisans and the engineering staff, Jolly’s team has the technical expertise to work on the LM2500.
Missing was the correct support staff and the correct numbers. Jolly was able to wipe the slate clean through promotions and reorganization. “We were fortunate enough to start over again, so we selected people who wanted to take on the challenge (reduce turnaround time),” he said.

Ozzie Sanchez (Code 6.2.5.1) is the single point of contact for production control. “Production control, engineering, and the production foreman (or her relief) meet every morning to discuss what they are going to do that day. When the meeting ends, everyone knows what his or her responsibilities are for that day.”
Jolly said that meetings used to be held once a week, “and we talked about every single engine that we had in house, and people got lost in the details because we were trying to keep track of numerous parts for each engine and the course that each had to go,” he said. “No one had the stamina or the desire to discuss the many parts of the engine over the course of several hours in a meeting. This was the culture at the time.”
So Jolly changed the format. “We evolved into what we have today. We first met once a week, then twice a week to talk about more emergent aspects. We discussed what we needed from each other to build the next engine to be sold,” he said. “We talked about the long term requirements that we needed from each other which was a further refined move from the original weekly meeting. But we weren’t quite there yet.”

When new people joined the effort, they didn’t have any preconceived notion on what should or should not happen. Jolly said they were there to help the program. “We discovered that there was a fundamental disconnect between production and the support staff. The artisans are the key to the success of the LM2500 program, and I believe that they were left out. No one sat down and told them about the next engine that the Depot was trying to build. They needed to be involved in the process. Now, we are getting everyone involved so they understand our goals and accomplishments.”

Artisans now know the turnaround goals and financial goals as well. “When we do this, we have an empowered employee who can make decisions on his or her own level to affect the overall outcome of the program,” said Jolly. “It has taken us two years to get there.”

Sanchez chairs the daily meetings, and Jolly sits in but doesn’t direct the flow of information. “I’m there as a team member, and we discuss the dates and goals, what we need to do today for that engine,” said Jolly.
He discovered that he needed everyone to buy into the program. “One of the ways I accomplish this is by getting as many people as I can in front of the customer and as often as I can.” The fleet is Jolly’s No. 1 customer, but Naval Sea Systems Command governs the LM2500 program. NAVSEA decides how many engines the Depot will work on per year. Jolly tries to bring as many people as he can to meetings he attends at NAVSEA each year. And he tries not to bring the same people each time. “In this manner, we build a relationship with the customer,” he emphasized. “We understand what NAVSEA’s problems and constraints are, what they expect from us. At the same time, NAVSEA can see a face on the other end, and we can communicate better. Then our people feel more a part of the program.

“Our staff meets annually with the customer to establish the number of engines that the Depot will receive and the costs associated with the work,” said Jolly. “I bring as many people as possible with me because this gets them involved in the process,” said Jolly. Everyone is involved in the entire LM2500 process rather than each person attending separate meetings to discuss their individual responsibility.

“Now we have engineers talking to artisans about turnaround time and customers and not about the technical aspects of the program. Everyone is now on the same page,” Jolly mentioned. “I want the artisans to know just as much about the program as I do.”

Jolly used to see customers about twice a year; now he sees them at least once a quarter and talks to them daily. If he isn’t available, he encourages the customers to call or speak to Jim Hansen, the planner and estimator. Jolly said that the Depot now has a strong customer relationship because everyone is talking to each other. Everyone - customers, artisans, supervisors - now know each other’s goals and objectives.
“All of this wrapped up resulted in a significant culture change for everyone,” Jolly stipulated.

Process has changed as well as people. “The production shop focuses on the ‘front end’ of the process. When an engine comes in, we try to get it completely disassembled in about 20 days. This saves us time at the end, so we don’t have to scramble to make turnaround time,” Jolly said. Another timesaver is having artisans perform the examination and evaluation themselves. “When the engine comes in, the artisans perform the E and E right then and there and they perform the routing. Now we have more eyes to rely on. We’ve removed some of the compartmentalization and empowered the employee to make decisions. This process, coupled with knowing the goals, speeds up the front end or the tear down process and the artisans are enthusiastic about this,” Jolly noted.

Several workers eliminated a “nightmare” of sorts by relocating the LM2500 parts section from Building 379 to Building 472. “Now the artisan is building an engine and the parts he needs are now several feet away. He no longer needs to go across the street with a truck and get a part. Before, if the part was not the one he needed the artisan had to go back and look for the correct one,” Jolly said. Now this simple solution of having parts in the same area as the engine saves time, possibly days, according to Jolly. “It all boils down to time and it’s a race every day.”

LM2500 artisans rely heavily on the wet processing areas that come under Mike Fuller, Code 6.2.3, in the Component area. These include the clean shop, the blast shop, the welding area, and the plating shop. “We know that Mike’s team has several other competing priorities and everyone fights for space. It’s a difficult area to manage from a workload perspective,” said Jolly. So they sat down and negotiated a solution to get the job done faster. The end result is Fuller dedicated an artisan in the clean shop specifically to Jolly’s product line. “Our artisans can go straight to Mike’s employee and tell him exactly what they need,” Jolly said.

Jolly conducted a survey in Fuller’s area and discovered that artisans who did not work in the LM2500 program spend 100 percent of their day working on LM2500 engine parts and the only workload that went across those machines was on the LM2500. “From an organizational standpoint this didn’t seem right. So we moved them to our code and reset their priorities,” Jolly said. Fuller agreed to the move. “We went from 15 to 22 artisans,” Jolly noted.

According to Jolly, material is always the bane of any work program. Jolly gets material from different sites: Naval Inventory Control Point (NAVICP), Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and its three sites, and from commercial sources and directly from vendors. All of these create roadblocks for the LM2500 engine program, Jolly confirmed. “Now Mike Nash, our Fleet and Industrial Supply Center (FISC) representative, who I think is related to the ‘Tazmanian Devil’, single-handedly has assisted us in stepping up our program so we don’t have to wait so long for a part. We get a substantial discount because we buy in volume. We (the Navy) are the world’s No. 1 owner of LM2500 engines, and this carries a lot of clout when it comes down to buying power,” said Jolly. “You get peoples’ attention when you buy in volume.”

Nash uses a government credit card if he so much as smells a delay in getting a part for the engine.
“We have gotten through to the right people at NAVICP that there is a revolution going on at the Depot and they need to get on board. We got NAVICP’s attention through NAVSEA,” he said. Jolly needed to let NAVSEA know that Naval Air Depot North Island was serious about what it needed to do to get the LM2500 engine program turned around and reduce turnaround time. “They needed to know that it couldn’t be business as usual. NAVSEA had to use systems that weren’t used to get a quick response time.”
He said that suppliers and customers are willing to do more for the Depot. “We get a great deal of participation and effort from people to help us. NAVSEA is now willing to provide the Depot with LM2500 parts – on an emergent basis – it gets from ships being decommissioned.

“We’re all in this together and it wasn’t like this in years past,” Jolly said.