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Show nn s n nA -- A ; ; -- J Hill AFB, Utah hill.af.mil Vol. 57 No. 44, November 8. 2001 www.hiiItoptimes.com hilitop.pa 84056-582-4 tent ats W Commander's Call Base progress, future changes discussed by Bill Orndortf X Hilltop Times editor 'Report cards" from base evaluations and plans for transforming Air Force Materiel Command were INSIDE: Director honored LG Page 2 among the topics discussed Monday by Maj. Gen. Scott Bergren at his Fall Commander's CalL For security reasons, the four Commander's Call to directors, sessions were announced only by who in turn were asked to notify employees. Audience questions will be answered in later editions of the Hilltop Times. "We are going to go through a transformation process in Air Force Materiel Command," Bergren said. "We're going to look at the way we're organized, including business areas, the working capital fund, everything to see if we're optimized to best support our Air Force. It's a very exciting time for us to beinAFMC." The general said the changes won't be driven" and ideas will be sought from employees. "It's a chance for us to do a lot of things we do really innovation well here and make it even better and excellence. We need you to tell us what we can do better," Bergren said, noting that further details on the change process will be announced later. "The situation is, that we live in a world that is changing all around us. So if you think you're standing still by changing nothing, you're really backing up because the world is going forward without you. You have to continually process improve, and change, and we're going to go through that in our command." Bergren praised Hill workers for achieving high ratings in recent Maintenance Standardization and Evaluation Program and Environmental Compliance Assessment Management Program studies. The MSEP evaluation showed Hill 98 percent in compliance with the safety and process standards and is part ofAFMC's focus on "back to basics."The ECAMP inspection resulted in 50 percent fewer findings from past inspections. "We've got to go one step further than doing really good when the MSEP team comes through," the general said. "We've got to create a culture of safety and innovation and excellence in every single thing we do, day in and day out. We're not quite there yet. "We do a good job of getting dressed up for the dance, and we did really well when they came, but it took a tremendous amount of effort," he said. "We went through every toolbox and we made sure everything was etched and numbered and cataloged, but we shouldn't have to go through that process to get ready for an inspection. We should have already been there. I'm very, very happy on where we are, but we're not where we want to be yet. It encapsulates the whole notion of excellence not being a destination it's the whole trip." Discussing another report card, the contract workload, Bergren said he's confident the work will remain in the OgdenALC. "We've recently gone through the process where the Joint Management Office, located at Oklahoma City, looks at the work we did in 2001 and grades it in terms of production, cost, quality and how we incorporated small business in what we did," Bergren said. They give us a grade and that grade factors into our overall score down the road, which determines whether or not we win that award term. "Last year, for FY 2000, we graded out at 68 points. What they recommend we get this year is 77 points, so we've done significantly better than we did last year. The bottom line is if we continue to perform the way we're performing, we're doing well enough to get that award term and keep this workload out through 2007. We're on track to keep the work at Ogden." The general showed a chart of achievements, wT7 V. Jw uw Q :, w ' 4. "top-dow- n VITIIAN'I NOVIMIII DAY 11TB Veterans Day has new meaning Page 3 Bus vouchers available Page 4 Native American medal winners Page 5 Snowboard safety i7 388th Fighter Wing Fighter Country Pages A-- C New commercial debuts Page D noting that commodities A-1- Spouse honored for Initiative on-tim- e performance improved from 45 percent to 79 percent, and work was 97 percent on time in September. Work on the produced 39 jets, 97 percent of which were on See Commander, page 6 0 Ft-- f t V liBniMMl BB ( H I II I ni X i'"f i Til fl'iln TTTTITIMI Mill Photo by Gregg Wlxom Scott Bergren pauses as he discusses what we now face after the Sept. part of Monday's Commander's Call. Maj. Gen. ullilll 11 terrorist attacks. The remarks were War affects how we live by Ma. Gen. Scott C. Bergren Ogden ALC comma,-c- f 31 I don't think there is anybody who will not agree with me when I say that September 11 was a watershed day, not only for the United States of America but I think the whole world. It has completely altered the way we live. Now you hear that all the time on the news "it's completely altered the way we live." It hasn't taken away America. It hasn't taken away the lifestyle that we have, the hope that we have, the beliefs that we have in preserving human dignity and basic human rights, or our freedom. It just means we have to do things a little differently like we're doing here at Hill AFB. We could probably be in this Force Protection Condition Charlie for a number of years, because we're at war. And I guarantee if we are, six months from now, you won't even notice it Six months from now, you won't even be bothered by the fact that you've got to show your ID every time you come through the gate. You won't be bothered anymore by the fact that you've got to go through only one door at every building that you go to and when you go through there you've got to fumble around in your back pocket and show your ID because youll be used to it It will be the way we live. We have to change the way we live because of the events of September 11. And we're in this for the long haul. You know they're beating the drum in the media about "when's the bombing campaign going to end?" and "when's this going to end?" Let me help put this into perspective for you. The tragedy happened Sept 11. Less than a month later, on Oct 7, we had forces employed in the Persian Gulf and we began combat operations. Since that time, we've dropped hundreds of thousands of pounds of ordnance on the enemy, and we've dropped millions of packets of humanitarian food. Yet, you're starting to hear the clamor for "when is it going to end." If you look at Pearl Harbor, where we lost less people than we did in the tragedy of the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, it was four months before we attacked the Japanese in retaliation for their attack. Before the Doolittle Raiders put bombs over Tokyo, it was four months. It was eight months before we put ground forces on enemy soil at Guadalcanal. The U.S. bombed Japan for 3 12 years. It was 2 12 years after Hitler declared war on the U.S. that American air forces dropped the first bomb over Germany. And the U.S. bombed Germany from 1943 to 1945 two years. And now, while there's still smoke coming out of the World Trade Center, you're starting to hear, "how much longer." We're in a war, and it's going to take a long time. We all, as Americans, need to settle into that and be prepared to wage this war. This is a war that we have to fight This war was brought to us with the deaths of thousands of innocents. We can't live like this as Americans. We can't live under the specter of those pictures of the World Trade Center with those airplanes flying into them. We've got to put a stake through the heart of terrorism once and for all and we've got to do it for our children and for our children's children and the generation of Americans that follow. It is our destiny to do this. This generation right here and this mixture of generations, you and me sitting right here we're the ones that are going to have to do this. Nobody else can do this. And so we will have to fight to preserve our freedoms, just like our parents did in their war, just like our grandparents did in their war. It is time for America to fight And we'll do that So I ask for your patience, I ask for your resolve, I ask for your calm vigilance. This is a war that we have to win, this is a war that we will win. (This message is the final portion of Gen. Bergren's Fall Commander's Call remarks, delivered Monday.) v Page 9 Order triples section's production pace. by Gary Boyle Tinker tries electric cars Page 11 Hilltop Times staff To keep the wheels turning on America's Air Force, repairs have to roll off the line in pace with demand and in recent weeks demand has grown. In September Air Force Materiel Command asked the Commodities Directorate's wheels and brakes section to fill an order for 49 5 main wheels in 30 hours. The average amount of flow time for a wheel is between 10 and 14 days. "AFMC wanted these wheels so bad they sent a plane to pick them up," said Deputy Director of Landing Gear Division Maj. Mark Bibler. "We knocked out 180 in three weeks, which is three times our normal amount while still meeting the goals for all the other systems we work on." The team works on 23 wheel systems ranging from to Rearrangements on the production line had to be made to accommodate the command's need, so instead of circumventing the process, 5 systems were moved to the front of the line. "We involved all the planners and schedulers together r W - u j , j w if If I i C-- B-5- 2s s. C-- nnrm rVKJK COPY U i M ' l m CM Photo by Gary Boyle Members of the wheels and brakes team, Including left Jason Henry and Jeff Richardson, repair approximately 200 wheels a week for 23 different systems. to make sure we had all the parts needed to make this goal. This probably touched the hands of about 125 people. It was an all out effort," said Aircraft Mechan- - ical Parts Repair supervisor Roger Simmons. "We were able to bring people back who had done this work before but had moved on to other crews. We have a lot of young people and a few experienced members and they all came together, bored down and got the job done." Accomplishing the initial surge only increased the desire of the customer for more quality work and the team went from completing 20 C-- 5 systems a week to putting out 40 during the same time. "We run about 190 to 200 wheels a week through here," said Simmons. "This crew exceeds the efficiency and output mandate every month. In the last three years they've tripled output." Working overtime and weekends, the team reached a pace that couldn't be matched. "We were doing so many wheels the Defense Logistics Agency couldn't crate them fast enough," said Bibler. "But they jumped on board and took on some overtime." "This wasn't just a one week effort The first week we did 60, the next we did 50. We had a lot of systems ready when the initial order came in, but now we're doubling what we were doing before," said Simmons. t ( |