MRO IT study under way in AFSC Published Feb. 8, 2013 By Mike W. Ray Tinker Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- An Air Force Materiel Command team is undergoing a comprehensive process required to implement a new information technology system that would help standardize maintenance, repair and overhaul across the command. The standardization, known as the "Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul Capability Initiative," has been recommended in light of the budget reductions facing the Air Force and the entire Department of Defense, said Eileen Hake, lead program analyst in the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex Business Operations Office. The MRO initiative is focused on improving how the Air Force plans, schedules and executes organic depot maintenance, repair and overhaul, by standardizing processes and information across complexes and repair lines. A six-step project, the Service Development and Delivery Process, is first required in order to impose uniform IT processes throughout the air logistics complexes at Tinker, Hill and Robins Air Force Bases and at the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group ("The Boneyard" in Arizona). "The ultimate goal is to demonstrate that an MRO IT system is needed, and if so, how we should standardize it across the AFSC," Ms. Hake said. The SDDP is intended to ensure that information technology capabilities "are not acquired unnecessarily," an Air Force manual explains. SDDP Step 1, a "statement of need" that incorporated a dozen substatements, is finished. Step 2 is nearing completion by subject matter experts and Headquarters MRO team members, and will be submitted for approval by AFSC/LG and AFMC/A4 at the end of this month. In Step 2 "we performed business process re-engineering and developed a comprehensive 'as is' process model that details what MRO planners, schedulers, and production chiefs do," Ms. Hake said. "And from that we produced flow models." During Step 2 the MRO CI team created and validated 22 Level 3s. ("Each of the process models we developed was decomposed into its basic activities, or tasks, sometimes down to two to three levels of decomposition," Ms. Hake related. "Essentially, this breaks down the process a little farther.") The Step 2 efforts included detailing the 'to be' state and associated models. During the modeling "we identified 50 systems" that the maintenance community is required to use today," Ms. Hake said. "And these 'stovepipe' systems don't talk to each other," she lamented. To illustrate, some mechanics have to understand up to three different systems to find the correct technical order to work from, she said. "We can standardize this with one system," Ms. Hake asserted. Imposing uniformity would provide the ability to reduce repair flow-days, increase on-time delivery, get aircraft back to the warfighter quicker, and would eliminate "a lot" of paperwork, Ms. Hake said. It also would be cost-effective, she said. It costs $180 million annually "to maintain our logistics systems." The MRO CI Team is comprised of more than 50 people from Tinker, Robins, Hill and AMARG, including seven or eight individuals from each of the three depots plus three representatives from the 309th AMARG, Ms. Hake said. "We have SMEs from the Complexes and AMARG, and leads and contractors from AFMC." Ms. Hake is the functional lead for Tinker. Others include Production Chief John Frost, Scheduler Mike Pickett and Planner Penny Bruehl, all from the 76th Propulsion Maintenance Group; Cheri Tornello from the 76th Commodities Maintenance Group; Travis Ridinger from the 422nd Supply Chain Management System; and IT SME Gary Love. The MRO CI team is working with Quality Assurance, Finance, Engineering and Supply Chain Management on the SDDP, Ms. Hake said. The SDDP began in August 2012, and the goal is to complete the work by October 2013, she said.