AFOS21 improves Dover Air Force Base

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Matthew Hubby
  • 436th AW Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  Team Dover has embraced Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, creating a cultural shift toward process improvement by identification and elimination of wasteful practices.

Dover uses AFSO21 to improve procedures that are common day tasks to reduce man-hours involved and money spent while eliminating waste. The program is broken up into two separate processes, Lean awareness and 6S.

Lean awareness is the process of identifying and reducing waste to promote maximum efficiency. The 6S's are a process where a problem area is identified, then audited for violations in the six areas of safety, sorting, straightening, shining, standardization and sustainment. Once the issues are identified, they can work toward fixing the problem area.

"Dover has improved not only its processes but its culture as well," said Master Sgt. Melissa Sawyer, 436th Airlift Wing AFSO21 assistant program manager. "We've greatly increased our efficiency, reduced man-hours and costs to our procedures."

Some of these procedures include: United Service Organization Warehouse 6S event, which saved more than 5,000 square feet of space; Fleet Services upper bay 6S project, which shaved off more than 1,000 miles of travel time annually; Family Childcare Lending Library 6S project, which reduced the amount of storage space from four rooms to two, while still more than meeting the needs of customers; and Medical Records Management Process, which increased accuracy and timeliness of records review.

These processes were not the only procedures improved; the 436th Maintenance Group propulsion flight accessory section used AFSO21 lean methods to develop a solution to prevent C-5 Galaxy inlet damage.

"Here we use AFSO21 methods for everything," said Larry Philips, 436th Maintenance Squadron production supervisor. "We make sure that almost everyone in here gets AFSO21 training, so they have that mindset." The result of this project, are soon to be maintenance procedures Air Force wide, he said.

The 436th MXG also originated the idea parking plan, said Ronald Collins, 436th Airlift Wing AFSO21 program manager. The parking plan is a large board located in a central area of a shop, where all members of the organization can put an issue up on the board along with a potential solution to the problem. These boards are then reviewed by the squadron commanders every month. The idea parking plan has been benchmarked by five major commands and is an Air Force best practice.

"We're constantly improving our culture, processes and Airmen," said Mr. Collins. "We are training more facilitators and instructors all the time, so Dover will continue to improve well into the future. We're still picking up speed, and we're going to keep moving well into the future."

(Additional reporting by 2nd Lt. Abigail Wise)