News

402nd EMXG wins silver in Shingo Prize

  • Published
  • By Wayne Crenshaw
  • 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
The 402nd Electronics Maintenance Group here has taken silver in the Shingo Prize, which has been dubbed the "Nobel Prize of Manufacturing." 

The 402nd EMXG employs 1,407 people who test and repair avionics on a wide array of military aircraft. 

The Shingo Prize is administered by the Utah State University School of Business and recognizes organizations which demonstrate excellence in efficiency and continual quality improvement. It is named after Japanese industrial engineer Shigeo Shingo, who helped create many aspects of Toyota's legendary production system. 

"It's wonderful news," said Sandy Faircloth, director of the 402nd Electronic Maintenance Support Squadron, which put together the unit's 100-page award package. "It shows our people's dedication to continuous process improvement. They really believe in it and have shown it works." 

Among the 402nd EMXG's accomplishments: It's trimmed 25 steps in the process of manufacturing circuit cards - from 127 to 102 -- eliminating 10 production hours per job; reduced the number of flow days to produce Digital Automated Test Sets by 61 percent; and reduced its number of safety violations by almost 60 percent.

It's also garnered more than 50 individual and team awards at Air Force-, Command- and Center-level in recent years, including Air Force Outstanding Unit awards in 2006 and 2008. 

Ms. Faircloth said that while she would have liked to have seen the group get the top prize, silver is a significant accomplishment, especially considering that Shingo raised the standard for the award this year. 

"We were competing under stricter guidelines than ever before," she said.
402nd EMXG Commander Col. Jerry Whitley also said he was not disappointed that the group didn't take the top prize. 

"This is a very difficult and demanding evaluation process," he said.
Col. Whitley added that plans are already in the works for the unit to compete again and try to win the top prize. 

He said an area of improvement that the group needs to aim for is to be able to shift workload faster. 

"We've got to develop an operational philosophy where we can easily shift from one type of production to another," he said. "We may need to produce F-15 LANTIRN parts today but tomorrow it may be C-130 color radar parts." 

Public and private organizations worldwide vie for the coveted Shingo Prize, which is the top honor. Silver is the next highest, followed by bronze. 

The only other Shingo Prize given to a military organization was to the Logistics Command & Army Fleet Support, LLC - Lowe Army Heliport, at Ft. Rucker, AL. It received a bronze award. 

The awards will be presented May 5 at the Shingo Prize Annual Conference in Nashville, Tenn.