Vehicle Management advancing lethality with “APEX” maintenance concept

AL UDEID AIR BASE, QATAR

04.30.2021

Courtesy Story

379th Air Expeditionary Wing

Transportation is a key component to logistics and, inherently, every single operational mission across the Air Force. Between moving people and property, transportation is an integral piece of day-to-day operations and requires a robust fleet of ready and well maintained vehicles to successfully accomplish this daunting task. Under the best of circumstances it takes an intelligent, dedicated and skillful team of people to manage and maintain even a small fleet of vehicles to ensure a continuum of operations.

At Al Udeid, the 379th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron Vehicle Management team has the responsibility of sustaining the largest organic vehicle fleet under U.S. Air Forces Central and the third-largest vehicle fleet in the Air Force, crucial to supporting one of the most relied upon and dynamic strategic operations in the world. In addition to routine fleet management activities, the team has to regularly overcome excessively high diversity and utilization of the vehicle fleet, austere environmental conditions and supply chain shortfalls that can put stress upon transportation resources and mission success.

Despite the challenges facing the team, the innovative LRS Airmen have devised and implemented a local methodology that promotes improvement of overall fleet health and increased resiliency in the flight, the fleet and operations. Additionally, it is incorporated into a lean, standardized and rapidly deployable package – an embodiment of the “Accelerate Change” priority from Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown.

The concept, coined “APEX Maintenance,” leverages, industry best practices, Airmen empowerment and technologies to create a more effective, people first approach to the mission. The concept prioritizes increased production and eliminates distractions and inefficiencies that can hold up the process – promoting balance in the lives of assigned personnel despite the challenges of living in the contingency environment. The team’s focused efforts have doubled maintenance throughput while concurrently increasing the standard of maintenance quality across the fleet and, as a result, drastically increased serviceability and availability of assigned assets for execution of the mission.

To achieve this, each bay was reconfigured to a purpose built standard, intended to produce high quality maintenance – ensuring timely repair of each and every vehicle that enters the facility. Next the facility work schedule was aligned to deliberately incorporate consistency in the lives of the Airmen assigned, facilitate synergy and seamless transition between shifts as well as maximum efficiency in the collective maintenance production of the shop. It was built to turn up to 20 vehicles per day depending on mission requirements. Finally, the four sections that comprise the flight were reengineered and processes-tailored to eliminate bottlenecks and waste and ensure that every single person was employed in a way that directly supports the bottom line of the flight: ensuring maximum availability and mission capability of each and every transportation asset on Al Udeid Air Base. The immediate result has been a 35% reduction in overall vehicle non-availability time, a 70% reduction in vehicle mobile maintenance calls, and an 80% reduction in mobile calls resulting from system malfunction or mechanical failure.

In addition to successfully improving fleet health, the team has also created the ability to deploy the maintenance capability by incorporating Agile Combat Employment into the shop’s bay designs. The Airmen have created a system in which the shop is entirely deployable, with the equivalent of two bays and all tools needed to repair any vehicle in the fleet, and can be packaged onto half of a 463L pallet in less than 45 minutes. The shop is laid out in a way that tailors bay layouts to specific categories of vehicles and as such can be configured for deployment in a scalable, modular and purposeful way to meet any mission need. Although in a state of constant evolution, the mobility allows the team to head to any location at a moment’s notice and sustain transportation assets with minimal logistics tail for a period of up to 30 days. Additionally, technology is a vital part of this construct. The application of technologies such as Wi-Fi enabled tablets and cordless tools allow the Airmen to perform every aspect of fleet management and maintenance in lieu of permanent infrastructure, resulting in the ability to project the inherent capability of any Vehicle Management facility, saving time and money on extended repair times.

This process is a tangible example of the potential of our existing force to synergize and achieve amazing results through a prioritization of empowerment and support. The more than 280 Airmen assigned over the course of the last twelve months have developed, tested and produced a structure that propelled the health of one of the largest and most diverse vehicle fleets in the Air Force to a four-year high mission capable rate of 90%. Their efforts have demonstrated an innovative approach that incorporates Agile Combat Employment, Flight Line of the Future and Logistics Under Attack priorities to produce a lethal, ready and resilient transportation capability adaptable to overcome whatever hurdle the future fight presents.

• Date Taken: 04.30.2021
• Date Posted: 04.30.2021 03:04
• Story ID: 395208
• Location: AL UDEID AIR BASE, QA