News

It’s all about streamlining the process

  • Published
  • By Roland Balik
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  In June 2022, the 436th Logistics Readiness Squadron, which previously fell under the 436th Mission Support Group, was temporarily realigned under the 436th Mission Generation Group, placing all logistics, maintenance and cargo processing within one group and under one group commander.

Following the Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr’s call to Accelerate Change or Lose, the 436th Air Mobility Wing decided to test if the realignment would improve sortie generation. Permanent realignment will be determined based on results of the two-year study.

“[The] MGG’s organizational realignment has been paramount towards consolidating Team Dover’s local supply chain,” said Col. Bary Flack, 436th MGG commander. “Strengthening relationships between APS and LRS expedites our ability to provide maintainers fulfillment, directly enabling the wing to project air power at any time, anywhere.”

It is a priority to get aircraft parts to the customer once they are delivered to the Aerial Port’s Traffic Management Office via commercial carriers.

Deliveries arriving at Traffic Management are sorted by priority. Shipping documents are then validated against contents and for correctness. Information is then manually entered into a database, and the last step is placing the item in a labeled bin ready for pickup by ground transportation.

Although the 436th Aerial Port Squadron Traffic Management Office’s inbound cargo section has been collocated within the 436th LRS Supply Airmen for more than two years, resolving supply issues became less of a problem with both squadrons in one group.

“A great outcome from realigning this process has been increased organization and better communication between the three flights and two squadrons, leading to assets being delivered much faster than before,” said 2nd Lt. Nicole Dyckman, 436th LRS asset management officer in charge.

In order to streamline the delivery process and allow for faster package processing, Airmen innovated methods to decrease the delivery time to customers, who are mainly maintenance units spread throughout Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.

“After talking to each section, we simply decided to put all the cages that hold aircraft assets and needed to be moved by ground transportation in a centralized location and better labeled them with bright green tags. This allowed anyone who walked in to understand the floor layout better,” said Dyckman.

Communication between LRS and APS personnel was instrumental in developing this “clear floor policy” to expedite parts delivery. Automating shipment documentation between these organizations is an additional endeavor under development, aimed to improve fulfillment to maintainers.

“With [436th LRS Supply] recently being moved under the MGG, I think it allowed for a better understanding of the supply chain process because all parties now report to the same leadership chain, so problems are able to be resolved quicker and more efficiently,” said Master Sgt. Amanda Diaz, 436th APS inbound cargo section chief.

The downward trend in delivery times proves that the MGG’s functional alignments, best practices and lines of communication within the group are working.