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Show Hilltop ames Hill INSIDE: AFB, Utah 84056-582- 4 www.hilltoptimes.com 63 No. 7, February 19, 2004 D Ceimtteirv woinig respoinisDMDliDes WRIGHT-PATTERSO- N AFB, Ohio (AFMCNS) Beginning March 1, most Air Force Materiel Command center commanders will no longer serve as installation commander at their respective bases, allowing them to focus more on their acquisition, sustain-meand test and evaluation missions. AFMC's installation commander job is being passed to each installation's air base wing commander who oversees the operations and manages the infrastructure and people who operate the base and support its tenants. Pegs 2 nt i:crltc;o Vol. hilltop.pahill.af.mil cccn day-to-da- Page 2 y At Hill AFB, the responsibil- ities will pass from Maj. Gen. Action Una Transfer allows better focus on missions Kevin Sullivan, Ogden ALC commander, to Col Seb Romano. 75th Air Base Wing comman- der. According to Gen. Gregory S. Martin, AFMC commander, this change is being done for two major reasons. "First, this will allow the center commanders greater opportunities to focus on their primary missions of delivering technology, acquisition support, sustainment and expeditionary capabilities to the warfighter," said Gen. Martin. This is especially important to the command's three prod war-winni- to procurement, will the wings. Also, there will be command chief master sergeant positions at both the centers and wings. re-ali- s tin said. "This will make AFMC uct centers Aeronautical Center at look more familiar to our AFB, Ohio; Electronic warfighter customers, thus making it easier to do business Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass.; and Air Armament with our command. It will also Center at Eglin AFB, Fla. give our wing commanders the where the center commanders full experiences they need to are now also program execucontinue to grow into Air Force tive officers for the Air Force's senior leaders." To give wing commanders aircraft, Command and Control and armament acquisition the right tools and people they need to exercise their responprograms, respectively. "Second, AFMC's organizasibilities, some functions and tional structure will now look offices will move from the cenmore like those of other Air ter commander's staff to the Force major commands where wing. For example, some elea wing commander is the instalments of several offices, includ-inlation commander," Gen. Mar-legal, financial and Sys-tem- Wright-Patterso- n "What we have now is a struc- ture that doesn't provide our air base wing commanders the authority and resources to fully support the people and organizations on their bases," Gen. Martin said. He said there are some functions now being carried out at the centers that are actually wing-levin nature and will better serve the installation by being placed under the wing commander's authority. el g si See Change, page 2 Method moves Lean beyond shop floors Outreach Page 3 dhaonge yfM ah""! Page 4 Bczrea rur.'.vsy Page 6 by Karl Tilton Hilltop Times assistant editor Hill AFB is using a specialized process improvement tool that promises to make operations here more efficient, while creating new, specialized job opportunities. The base is following the lead of some big name aerospace companies, like Boeing and Raytheon, which have been using a method called Enterprise Value Stream Mapping Analysis with great success. "In a nutshell, we plan to take more of a view of our Hill AFB and better focus our attention and enterprise resources on projects that have the greatest return on investment and positive impact to our customers," said Michael Gill, Enterprise Leadership Team lead and Contracting- director here. The Enterprise Value Stream Mapping Analysis approach is a continuation of the Lean, or process improvement, efforts that have been under way here for more than two years. The base's new plan, or roadmap, top-dow- 41C- -i f Filter 171 r.g , W V - n - Pages A-- D Photo by Beth Young Oelrdre Pleasure, a member of the Hill AFB Heritage Committee, reads to children at the Youth Center as part of the committee's community outreach during Black History Month. The committee has been reading to Hill children, both at the Youth Center and the Child Development Center, during the month of February for many years. African-Americ- Air Force professionals Xj ready for BRAC study by Staff Sgt. C. Todd Lopez Air Force Print News Page 7 The Department of WASHINGTON Defense published in the Federal Register on Feb. 12 the criteria that will be used in selecting installations for the 2005 round of base realignment and closure. Air Force Director of Installations, Environment and Logistics Nelson F. Gibbs spoke that same morning to the House Appropriations Commit LES ctzzzzi Page 8 tee subcommittee on military con- struction about the state of the Air Force's BRAC program. "Air Force pro- fessionals at all levels have made great progress to prepare for BRAC 2005," Mr. Gibbs told the committee in his prepared testimony. That preparation, Mr. Gibbs BRAC No one can know the department of the Air Force's basing structure requirements for the 21st century until the BRAC 2005 process is finished. office for basing infrastruc-tur- e analysis to act as the focal point for Air Force BRAC 2005 efforts. The major commands followed suit, creating their own offices to support the process, he said. "Today, there are (more than) 150 full and Air Force professionals engaged part-tim- e v - fer property." Most importantly, Mr. Gibbs said, the Air Force will be better prepared through the BRAC 2005 process to deed property faster than in previous said, involved the creation of an Air Force and "The Air Force has made significant progress in transitioning the installations identified for closure or realignment in previous rounds of BRAC," he said. "Turning to BRAC's past, the Air Force continues to work with local reuse authorities and other property recipients at each realigned and closed base from the four previous rounds of BRAC to trans- Nelson Gibbs rounds. The Air Force is currently in the process of disposing of more than 87,000 acres at 32 locations, Mr. Gibbs said. He also told committee members that despite what may be said on the Internet, referring to a fake story that has been circulating for some weeks, no deci- sions have been made as to what bases will be closed or realigned. "No one can know the department of the Air Force's basing structure requirements for the 21st century until the BRAC 2005 process is finished," Mr. Gibbs said. "(Air Force officials affirm) ... that regardless of in preparing for BRAC 2005," Mr. Gibbs said. what may have been published on the World Lessons learned from previous rounds of Wide Web, there is no Air Force BRAC list." Mr. Gibbs said the final list of base closure BRAC will help the Air Force better deal with property that may be affected by the recommendations won't be available until after May 2005. BRAC 2005 round, Mr. Gibbs said. t i r identifies Hill's "enterprise," dividing it into four core mission areas: depot maintenance, purchasing . and supply chain management, program management and readi ness. The enterprise plan includes the hiring of 11 Lean facilitators who will review each of these areas, from beginning-to-end- , looking for disconnects or delays in processes. The job announcements are expected to be posted within two weeks and hiring is expected to be completed by April 1, Mr. Gills said. The facilitators, will receive three weeks of initial process improvement methodologies training followed by six months of hands-o- n training. The jobs come with a two year commitment and will be advertised as GS-113, and 14 positions. "We're looking for people from all walks of life in any grade," Mr. Gills said. "The only qualifications required are good analytical and communication skills and the ability to keep up in course." a college-levFollowing their schooling, the specialized individuals will be known as "black belts," a fitting title as Lean practices were developed and implemented first in Japan - namely the auto industry there. The black belts will be broken into smaller groups and will begin assessing the base's main "enterprise" areas, using the value stream mapping process to identify d essential or procedures, while flushing out steps that are unnecessary. Down the road, base senior leadership plans to select two black belt team members to continue their education and work as interns with either Boeing or Raytheon. These two people will be known as Hill's first "senseis." The enterprise approach was suggested by a team of Lean Aerospace Initiative advisors, industry experts in process d with improvement, who have been working the base's senior leadership for the past six months to help ease the base into Lean. The LAI team's recommendations came in response to a request by senior leadership for ways to make the center more independent in its Lean journey. "For the base's process improvement efforts to take hold, centerside, we wanted to rely less on these advisors," Mr. Gills said. This is intended to shift the center's process improvement focus from tactical to strategic, said Maj. Gen. Kevin Sullivan, the Ogden ALC commander, at a recent public sector manufacturing conference. So far. Lean initiatives at Hill have mainly focused on maintenance operations, but the enterprise approach will incorporate all areas on base and will include every step from paper work to production. "We're going to target expansion above and beyond the shop floor," General Sullivan said. "Studies show that half the cost associated with production is the enabling, or administrative support Enterprise Value Stream Mapping will put all of our processes into context enable us to target specific operations," Mr. Gill said. i i 2, el value-adde- hand-in-han- ad " |