Third 'P' makes the difference Published Jan. 22, 2010 By Wayne Crenshaw 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- The four focus areas of the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center's strategic plan are called P3I, and it is the third "P" that really measures the end results of all four. Those focus areas are people, process, performance and infrastructure. Dave Nakayama is director of the 559th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, which is responsible for C-5 Galaxy programmed depot maintenance. He is the first to admit the squadron has a challenge ahead to meet its part of the performance goal of consistent aircraft due-date delivery. They are closely involved with all four aspects of P3I to make that happens, and he is seeing progress, even though there is much left to be done. "I will tell you that our due-date performance is not where it needs to be and we are working hard to improve that," he said. "It didn't get that way overnight, and it's not going to get better overnight." The problems are many, he said, starting with the fact that the C-5 is an enormous plane and the PDM process for it requires a lot of support outside of the 559th AMXS. Last August the squadron conducted a value-stream mapping event aimed at laying out every aspect of how C-5 PDM is done, identifying waste, and making it more efficient by eliminating those wasteful steps. They identified 119 opportunities to eliminate waste and are working to accomplish those through 60 separate actions. One example incorporates the High Velocity Maintenance concept currently being tested on C-130s. The concept includes inspecting planes at the home bases before they come to Robins so maintainers will know what each plane needs before it gets here. New engineers are being hired to serve as the team that will do those inspections and Nakayama expects that will start soon. Under yet another initiative resulting from the value stream mapping event, regular supportability reviews are being conducted. These reviews look at each plane as far out as three years before it gets to PDM to better plan the support needed, be it parts, manpower, training, special tooling or equipment, facilities or other resources. "They are all C-5s, but the content and the amount of work on each C-5 varies," he said. Another major improvement that should provide immediate help is that the squadron's personnel level has been approved to increase from 600 to 764 as soon as possible. "Besides getting parts, that's been one of the biggest constraints," he said. "We need the people to get the work done." Called P3I, the four focus areas are people, process, performance and infrastructure: ►People: Improve labor/management relations and enhance the work-force by cultivating first-class leadership. ►Process: Build on a foundation of innovation. ►Performance: Enhance performance and reputation of the ALC. ►Infrastructure: Incentivize infrastructure/cost control and use energy consumption as a test bed. The four focus areas are broken down into five specific initiatives, with one each for process, performance and infrastructure and two for people. The two people initiatives are: 1. Improve Labor/Management relations by fostering trust, confidence and respect through positive labor/management relations; 2. Enhance the workforce by cultivating first-class leadership, which includes "developing today's workforce for tomorrow's challenges," and providing leadership training to better address gaps and needs. The process initiative is to "build on our foundation of innovation" through redeploying Continuous Process Improvement skills and capabilities across the Center to affect five major process innovations using the High Velocity Maintenance enterprise innovation model. The performance initiative is to enhance the performance and reputation of the ALC through an integrated ALC team approach to achieve a 95-percent aircraft due date delivery performance rate on four aircraft production lines during a 36-month period, with less than 10 percent aircraft maintenance schedule changes. The infrastructure initiative is to incentivize infrastructure/cost control and to use energy consumption as a test bed with an aim of a 10-percent energy reduction by October.