COMMENTARY: Putting things in perspective Published July 13, 2015 By Kevin O'Connor Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex Director TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- To the men and women of the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, Right now is an interesting time in the history of our Complex. I would like to take a few moments of your time to put some things into perspective -- to step back and look at the bigger picture for our Complex. If we look across the past several years, the amount of workload that our Complex has executed for the Air Force has been on a bit of a roller-coaster. In fiscal year 2011 and FY12, we executed 8.3 million and 8.2 million hours of maintenance for our Air Force. Due to budget constraints, the amount of workload that drove into our 'Production Machine' dropped off in FY13 -- we only produced 7.2 million hours of maintenance. It appeared that we were about to enter a 'new normal' of reduced operational flying hours and consequently reduced maintenance workload. But ... then world events changed during the last half of FY14. FY14 experienced a small increase of workload to 7.5 million hours. This year (FY15), however, we are projected to close the year out just under 8.0 million hours of maintenance. While this is a significant increase over our FY14 execution, unfortunately it is still short of our 8.3 million hour requirement. Our workload continues to increase and is projected to increase to some of the highest levels in the history of our Complex. The FY16 workload requirement is 8.7 million hours of maintenance. The situation is now clear ... while we were preparing for a downward glide in workload, in reality we are seeing a dramatic increase in workload. In reality, this is good news for our business, for the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, for Tinker AFB and for the state of Oklahoma. But with this good news comes many challenges ... our 'Production Machine' must be firing on all cylinders to meet this increase in workload. That said -- and to be blunt -- none of us will be unaffected by the challenge of our increasing workload. As an enterprise, we will demand more from our continuous process improvement efforts, more from our supply chain (parts), more from our personnel system (hiring of new employees) and more from our 'Production Machine' (execution) than we have in recent years. There is not a business in the world that would not want to face this type of workload growth. Growth is always welcomed. Stagnation ... or worse, reduction of workload is never welcomed. So this truly is an exciting time in the history of our maintenance complex. This is what our Air Force, our Department of Defense and our nation need us to do. Positive change is occurring all around us. I urge each of you to be part of our efforts to meet this challenge. Your hard work and dedication serve to prove to our Air Force that we definitely possess the capability, the drive, and the motivation to execute this increasing workload requirement. This is what we do. This is how we make our government and our country better. Brig. Gen. Mark Johnson and I recognize that there are many shops working extraordinarily high amounts of overtime. We realize that sacrifices are being made. We thank you. We also want to remind everyone that it is during these challenging times that we must remain focused on safety, maintenance discipline, and being good Wingmen -- working together as a team and taking care of one another. Thank you for what you do each and every day! Thank you for rising to meet the challenge that lies before us. Take care of each other and be safe!