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Two 76th Commodities Maintenance Group employees' IDEA earns $10,000

  • Published
  • By Ron Mullan
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE --  Joe Wolf and Deborah Culp, 76th Commodities Maintenance Group recently received $10,000 for their idea which reduced failure rates for fuel tank interconnect valves 31 percent. 
   The failure rate on the valves was high, 33 percent. Most valves had to be retested five or six times before passing inspection. This led to an increase in reworking, retesting, and multiple condemning of units under test that were in functional order but failed because of the current method of testing. 
   The two workers discovered that the adapter used to connect the valve to the testing equipment resulted in a metal to metal connection creating an imperfect seal. 
   "Without a proper seal, we had to reject good valves," said Ms. Culp. "That led to increased costs and wasted man hours as each failed valve would have to be reworked time and time again." 
   When the valves are installed on the aircraft, a gasket is used. 
   "Our idea was to develop a gasket to use on the adapter to simulate field conditions during the valve test," said Mr. Wolf. 
   Using gasket material and a pair of scissors, Mr. Wolf fashioned a gasket to see if it would affect the testing. They retested a part that just failed the test without the gasket and the part passed. 
   A 202 temporary change to the Technical Order valid for 90 days was submitted and approved by engineering. When the 90 day period was over, the submitter's idea was reevaluated and a 252 Technical Order Change Request was approved. 
   Once the 252 was approved Ms. Culp and Mr. Wolf submitted their idea into the IDEA Program. This idea resulted in the failure rate dropping from 33 percent to just over two percent. The resulting savings in labor, parts and man hours generated an estimated savings of $95,000. 
   Both put their windfall to good use. Ms. Culp bought a new tractor for her farm and Mr. Wolf is going to Arizona to watch the Chicago Cubs in pre-season training.