Leaders preparing workers for TAC moves

Published April 16, 2009
By Christy Jaworsky
76th Commodities Maintenance Group

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla., -- The 76th Commodities Maintenance Group is preparing to move 80 percent of its people and processes during the next five years. To ensure these transitions are a seamless process, CMXG is holding town hall meetings to prepare its work force.

The group is on course to reduce its footprint from 26 to 10 buildings in an effort to become a leaner, more efficient organization. A new fuels building, currently under construction, and the former General Motors Plant will house the majority of CMXG. Fifteen percent of the group's existing workload will relocate to the new fuels building. An additional 65 percent will move into one million square feet of the Tinker Aerospace Complex with the remainder of the group undergoing realignment to fill any gaps.

Alongside American Federation of Government Employees Local 916 Commodities Transformation Steward Dwayne Miller, Col. Jeffrey Sick, 76th CMXG commander, is holding town hall meetings throughout the CMXG to educate the work force on future plans while also listening to and addressing their concerns about the moves. To date, more than 300 CMXG personnel have participated in town hall meetings.

Each meeting is held in a common area where the personnel are currently located, minimizing disruptions to production.

"Basically, Dwayne and I go where the people are," said Colonel Sick. "We try to limit the attendance at each town hall to around 20. That way it's a fairly small crowd, and hopefully, the people feel comfortable asking us questions and voicing their concerns. Our goal is to make sure everyone walks away with as much information as possible."

The primary focus of the town halls at this point is TAC. In all, more than 1,100 people, 30 shops and $1 billion of equipment will relocate to TAC during CMXG's multi-phase effort to establish a state-of-the-art multi-service repair center. Sheet metal work will move to TAC by the end of 2009. Composites will relocate by 2011, and Local Manufacturing will make the move by 2012. CMXG is scheduled to complete all moves to TAC by 2013.

"We have engineers, machinists, process improvement experts...the whole team working together to make sure we just don't move to TAC but we better ourselves in the process," Colonel Sick said. "We are combining the expertise of our shop floor with continuous process improvement tools to create new shop designs that will improve production, decrease flow times and improve warfighter support."

This "lean as you go" philosophy will make the new shops more effective and efficient. In addition, by co-locating interdependent and like processes in TAC, CMXG expects to better utilize its personnel. By 2013, CMXG will house modeling, bonding, plating, casting, composites, and sheet metal manufacturing and repair in TAC.

"TAC will give us the space to locate like processes across from or next to each other," Mr. Miller said. "If one shop has a workload surge and, for instance, additional sheet metal mechanics are required, they can simply walk across the aisle to support the shop for as long as required without forcing someone to go to another building to work. Having the processes, people, tools and parts right there will be one of the biggest benefits of moving to TAC."

The vast size of the building also postures the center to bring in new workloads and bring back currently contracted out work.

"Securing the right workload is a priority," Colonel Sick said. "We have to keep growing if we want to remain a vital repair center to the Department of Defense and stay competitive with private industry. Having additional space will allow us to go after new workloads and regionalize wheel and tire, local manufacturing and avionics workloads at Tinker."

As the more energy efficient building becomes populated, various amenities will move into TAC. The center plans to have air conditioning, heating, break rooms, ADA compliant restrooms, an ATM and a small "convenience store" in place before any moves are made. A cafeteria, gym and full service Tinker Federal Credit Union Branch are slated to open in the building as the work force population expands.

"Change is hard for some people, and this transition will take time," Mr. Miller said. "However, I really don't know of anywhere else in the country where a county has purchased such a large building to help support such a large work force. This is a win-win situation for the entire state and the Air Force."

The town halls will continue throughout the transition process to ensure the work force is informed. CMXG also plans to begin taking personnel on tours of TAC during the next few months to give employees a glimpse of the facility and their future work areas.

"This is a team effort, and we need the input and support of our entire work force to be successful," Colonel Sick said. "Moving to TAC will give us amazing opportunities for improvement and expansion, and I want our team to be excited about the future of CMXG."