P3I: HVM key factor in improving ALC's processes Published April 2, 2010 By Staff Report 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- You can't talk about the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center's "Process" focus area without mentioning High Velocity Maintenance. HVM is all about putting in place standard repeatable processes to dramatically reduce maintenance downtime for C-130s and eventually other aircraft. To date, the HVM team here has validated a number of those processes on three C-130s which have since been released to their units. HVM is based on four tenets. The first tenet is to know the condition of the aircraft before it arrives for service. The second tenet is supportability, or insuring all resources (tools, parts, etc.) to accomplish the work are available when they're needed. The third tenet is having "standard work" and "properly sequenced and choreographed" schedules. The fourth tenet is engaging a high daily "burn rate" of manpower on aircraft. The high burn rate is the key to decreasing the maintenance time over the life of an aircraft. Work on the first three C-130s has been concentrated on the fuselage, the first of four areas on the aircraft which will be "maintained" in 18-month intervals. The other areas are the wings, empennage and paint/flight controls. The next validation aircraft is scheduled to arrive sometime this summer. Doug Keene, the HVM Product Team Lead, said there has been dramatic improvement in the process with each validation. The team is also learning valuable lessons which the Center will apply to its first production aircraft, he said.