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Keeping the plant running

  • Published
  • By Brandice J. Armstrong
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla., --  The 76th Maintenance Support Squadron's Equipment Engineering Office is not a well-known unit on base. But, the organization's mission is vital to the Air Force.

The unit, made up of nearly 20 personnel, manages approximately 10,000 pieces of industrial plant equipment, or IPE, for the 76th Maintenance Wing. They track, oversee, diagnose problems, modify and improve the equipment until its retirement. Additionally, officials are promoting a new ethos and developing a handbook, which will ultimately make the organization more efficient.

"Although the IPE unit is in 76th Maintenance Support Group, their work is far reaching, touching depot equipment throughout the dozens of facilities within the maintenance wing," said Robert Roman, 76th MXSS director. "It's truly amazing how this team can predict a failure weeks before it happens, allowing 'downtime' to be scheduled for the repair, and eliminating production work stoppages."

The tracking process begins when an IPE asset arrives at Tinker. It is assigned an identification number that starts with "OC" to designate Oklahoma City, checked for the right model and serial number, and entered into the Facilities and Equipment Maintenance system. As part of the process, equipment specialists determine, plan and schedule preventive maintenance. Depending on the complexity of the piece, the induction may take a half-a- day or up to two weeks.

IPE items include hundreds of different types of assets, such as lathes and mills to automated washers and robotic plasma spray booths. IPE does not include ground support equipment such as portable generators or portable hydraulic units. Of the 10,000 wing IPE assets about 700 items are mission-critical.

"[IPE is] all the equipment that is used for the repair of components of the weapons systems maintained by the 76th MXW," said David Robinson, 76th MXSS's Industrial Services Squadron's acting flight chief for Engineering.

If an item is severely damaged or needs repair, in addition to preventive maintenance, the Equipment Engineering Office is notified through a work order and the item is inspected at the Predictive and Preventive Maintenance Lab or in the field. Tests performed may include a microscopic oil analysis, vibration analysis, infrared inspection, motor analysis or ultrasonic leak detection. After collecting and trending the data, analysis is performed. Also, suggesting solutions and planned repair work is documented.

"This unit can proactively conduct laser alignments on a 4-axis machining center, , one day and then an oil analysis on a vertical turret lathe, , the next," Mr. Roman said.

When equipment is ready to be retired, the Equipment Engineering Office removes assets from the FEM system, before they turned over to the Defense Reutilization Marketing Service, which disposes military equipment.

"The Equipment Engineering Office is not just keeping track of and monitoring the wing's equipment," Mr. Robinson said, "they are also increasing the longevity, quality, and reliability of these valuable assets critical to supporting the warfighter.

"If you can imagine a piece [randomly] out there, somewhere amongst our 8-million square feet of industrial floor space, then if we did not keep close track of where our equipment is, we'd never be able to perform maintenance in an efficient manner," Mr. Robinson said.

The reliability handbook due out in six months is based off the Air Force Materiel Command's monthly Reliability Council video teleconference meetings. It will offer best maintenance practices, plans, schedules and tools, said Art Caples, Equipment Engineering Office's supervisory general engineer.

"It centers on the proactive maintenance concept, rather than a reactive maintenance concept," Mr. Caples said. "Its implementation throughout the wing will result in increased equipment availability, better product quality and reduced maintenance costs overall."