Photo By Tech. Sgt. Michael Brown | Tech. Sgt. David Harris, 141st Maintenance Squadron, Aerospace Ground Equipment...... read more read more
Subscribe
The 141st Maintenance Squadron Aerospace Ground Equipment section has started rebuilding A/M32A-86 generator engines saving the Air Force thousands of dollars with each rebuild. The shop has one spare engine that gets rotated in and out of a piece of equipment as the engine goes bad. When that happens, they swap the engine with their rebuilt spare and commence with rebuilding the bad engine. The generators are used to simulate aircraft operating power using more fuel-efficient sources rather than running the aircraft engines.
“Cost savings is the largest benefit of rebuilding the engines,” said Tech. Sgt. David Harris, 141st Aerospace Ground Equipment Craftsman. “A close second to that is the reduced down time for the equipment due to the limited availability through the supply chain.”
The average cost of a new engine ordered through the supply system costs the Air Force $49,144.44 and can take quite a bit of time to be received once ordered. According to Tech. Sgt. Harris ordering the parts through supply and keeping a bench stock of parts on hand has significantly reduced cost and time spent waiting.
Tech. Sgt. Harris put together a cost analysis of rebuilding the engines locally, the cost of new accessories for the engine is $1,365.01 and non-Accessory parts is $1,543.79 for a total cost of $2,908.80. He even went so far as to break down the labor cost of standard shop rates if they were to send an engine out to be rebuilt and that came out to roughly $2,720 based on an 80-hour repair job with a shop rate of $34.00 an hour.
While it may take 80 hours plus to complete the job, the time savings of waiting for the parts from supply are far exceeded. Being able to repair the engine in house cuts down the time lost on a piece of AGE equipment significantly and allows them to continue to have a steady supply of the -86 equipment at the ready to support flying needs.
Overall, Tech. Sgt. Harris said the cost savings is about $43,515 on each rebuild, at their average of doing this twice a year they are saving the Air Force over $80K a year including the labor. Over the course of a 20-year military career that savings adds up to $1.6 million saved on that piece of equipment alone.
“Now that we are keeping parts on hand to repair the engines, we are looking to increase the numbers of rebuilds we do each year,” said Tech. Sgt. Harris. “There used to be a wait time to get them through the supply system, but having them on-hand allows us to be quicker on the repairs.”
In an Air Force that prides itself on innovation and cost savings, the 141st Aerospace Ground Equipment section is definitely doing their part to innovate and save money while increasing mission capability.
| Date Taken: | 11.06.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 11.07.2020 16:08 |
| Story ID: | 382592 |
| Location: | SPOKANE, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 180 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, 141st Aerospace Ground Equipment innovates to save the Air Force money, by TSgt Michael Brown, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
Routine
