Crane Army Employees Ensure Quality Munitions for the Warfighter

Photo By Hayley Smith | Crane Army Ammunition Activity employees assemble 155mm visual light illumination candles. These candles are components of M1124 155mm artillery rounds, which are fired into the air at a distance to light up the night sky and help troops maneuver more easily in the dark. Crane Army Ammunition Activity provides conventional munitions support for U.S. Army and Joint Force readiness, including production, demilitarization, transportation, and storage.  

CRANE, IN, UNITED STATES

04.19.2018

Story by Capt. Amy Ross 

Crane Army Ammunition Activity

CRANE, Ind. – See something, say something – it is a phrase most often associated with security concerns, but at Crane Army Ammunition Activity the phrase is being used to ensure only quality ammunition will reach the Warfighter.

The effort to produce only the best munitions so Soldiers can win the fight and come home safely starts with every worker on a production line or loading dock at Crane. As part of its quality culture, each employee is empowered to make a difference before items are ever seen by inspectors.

“Humans have the innate ability to be very perceptive and we can pick up on things event when we don’t know, Lara Zilafro, the Pyrotechnics Commodity Manager for CAAA said. “It’s a feeling that something just isn’t right.”

Using the human element allows leaders to get ahead of a potential issue before it leads to something worse. For Bryan Baxter, an explosives handler for CAAA, seeing a slight change in canisters raised an important question.

Baxter worked for pyrotechnics on fiberboard liners. The fiberboard liner is a cardboard tube that is staked inside the metal canister where pyro comp is pressed in to. This staked liner is key for the pyro comp to stay inside the canister when the round is fired and functioned. There are specific dimensions for the liners and if the liner is not compliant, the candle is no longer compliant. Being able to detect noncompliant liners is a key part of candle production.

“Early detection is key,” Zilafro said. “It is much cheaper to screen out noncompliant liners than it is to scrap noncompliant candles.”

Baxter worked the line for three weeks and knew how the canister and tubes fit together and the specific requirements.

“The tubes have to be smooth and right up to the top of the canister,” Baxter said. “When I worked this specific batch, I kept looking at them but they were just a hair short and I knew it just wasn’t right.”

Baxter immediately informed his supervisor who verified the tubes were short and stopped using that particular batch until they could figure out a solution.

“It was a really great catch for us,” Joshua Shipman, a mechanical engineer for the CAAA’s Manufacturing and Engineering Directorate, said. “We learned there is a potential to receive tubes that meet the drawing requirements, but are not acceptable for use. As a result this is now something that we will be inspecting for in future procurements.

One constraint using the human element is the fact that a person would need to know what
normal is. New employees may not have enough experience at first. However, Zilafro pointed out that if an employee could potentially know the equipment well enough to be noticing differences in a day.

“Honestly, if you’re running a particular piece of equipment in the morning and then in the afternoon it sounds different, you can question that,” Zilafro said. “We just have to be really careful that we positively reinforce the questioning behavior because if we don’t positively reinforce the questions, questions won’t be asked and we could be mission out on a huge opportunity.”

The idea of reinforcing the questioning behavior in order to spot potential problems is a theme recently reinforced to the workforce by CAAA commander Col. Mike Garlington. “Very often workers don’t say something because they are afraid the idea won’t be well received or they may possibly be ‘blown off,’” Garlington explained. “I need leaders who understand that listening to the ideas generated from the shop floor about quality are a golden opportunity to get better. Sometimes that means being humble enough to accept that you as a supervisor don’t always have the perfect solution.”

Even with the support of the supervisor, trusting their senses is something the workforce learns to do over time and experience to avoid potential problems. Dennis Wagler, an employee working on the vacuum line as part of a pyrotechnics press line, trusted his senses recently to point out a potential problem. At the end of the press line, pyro comp that "flashes" from under the ignition disk when the candle is pressed. An operator working at the end of the line that "cleans up" this flashing using a vacuum to suck away the scrap comp.

While cleaning, Wagler noticed a strange odor coming from the vacuum hose. He immediately knew something was not right.

“As soon as I started cleaning and got some comp knocked out of hose, it just smelled like straight ammonia,” Wagler said. “In five years I’ve never smelled that before. It also looked a different color than it normally does.”

Shipman explained the prolonged exposure of scrap composition in the hose to the moisture was likely the cause of the odor. Following Wagler reporting the potential problem, a pyrotechnic team began working with CAAA's chemists to confirm the source and cause. With that information CAAA can make efforts to mitigate or eliminate those issues in the future.

“It was good that this was brought to the supervisor's attention,” Shipman said. “It made us aware of an issue that warrants further investigation.”

The work done at Crane Army is inherently dangerous but absolutely vital the readiness of the Army and the Joint Force. It is why Crane Army employees are empowered to spot and report potential problems that could hurt workers here and Warfighters around the world.

Crane Army Ammunition Activity produces and provides conventional munitions requirements in support of U.S. Army and Joint Force readiness. It is one of 14 installations of the Joint Munitions Command and one of 23 organic industrial bases under the U.S. Army Materiel Command, which include arsenals, depots, activities and ammunition plants. Established Oct. 1977, it is located on Naval Support Activity Crane.

• Date Taken: 04.19.2018
• Date Posted: 04.19.2018 09:20
• Story ID: 273660
• Location: CRANE, IN, US