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B-52 kitting reduces wait-time for mechanics

  • Published
  • By Maisha T. Young
  • 76th Maintenance Wing Transformation Office
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Locating the correct part is half the battle for mechanics on the B-52 Bomber. But, a reinvigorated effort to streamline that process has made the battle easier.

In the past, parts for the B-52 were stored on pallets and around the docks, basically wherever the mechanic could find space. When it was time to perform maintenance on the part or put the part back on the aircraft, it was sometimes difficult to locate. The aircraft was losing several maintenance man-hours with mechanics having to walk around hunting for parts.

"With this project, we tackled areas on the B-52 maintenance floor where unorganized and greasy parts were lying around on open pallets," said John Stavinoha, B-52 Supervisor. "This unorganized process forced mechanics to become hunters and gathers searching through piles of parts to find what they were looking for."

According to Mr. Stavinoha, mechanics were spending on average forty-five minutes finding parts to work on the aircraft. In some cases, they were spending hours or days, and it required several people to be taken away from the aircraft to look for a needed part.

"The goal of this project was to find an organized, clean, protective, system to help the mechanics complete their daily work on the aircraft in a more productive manner," he said.

The solution to this problem was to "kit" the parts. Kitting is packaging all necessary parts and Industrial Prime Vendor items needed to perform maintenance on a specific area of the aircraft. To properly kit parts for the B-52, mechanics were called in to develop the list of parts essential to the maintenance of the bomber aircraft. The list included what parts were essential and in what order the parts were needed on the aircraft. Expeditors took the information from the mechanics and prepared prototype kits. The prototype kits were tested by the mechanics, and were adjusted if problems were found. The final product was delivered to the mechanics soon after.

"Before starting the kitting process things were very unorganized," said Lawrence Bergeron, B-52 Material Expediter who handles the building, formatting and designing of the kits. "In a four month time frame we have gone from a dirty, cluster of parts to everything being organized and protected in a box. It's a very easy-to-use system with photos on the kit as well as the stock shelves that illustrate what's in the kit, computer systems to assist with location of the kits, and a tagging system to help with organization."

Mechanics have the responsibility of placing the correct part in the kits while performing maintenance on the aircraft. As the parts are removed, they are tagged and placed in the kit. Once filled, the kit is inventoried and stored on the shelf. During maintenance phases, kits are pulled from the kitting room and sent to the production floor to ensure the mechanics have the proper parts needed to install on the aircraft.

According to Mr. Bergeron, approximately 70 percent of the B-52 maintenance procedures on the aircraft have been kitted. The mechanic's time trying to find a part has decreased from 30 or 40 minutes to three minutes. This improvement allows the bomber mechanics to spend more time working on the aircraft.

"The mechanic response is they are now actively engaged, coming to John Stavinoha for assistance and actively recommending part suggestions for kitting," said Milton James, process analyst.

"Before the kitting initiative the process was in disarray and unorganized, but we are here to build things for the mechanics; to standardize processes and let them give their input into the design of the kits," Mr. Stavinoha said. "The mechanics are making it happen."