422nd SCMS provides key support to the warfighter Published Sept. 26, 2014 By Ron Mullan Tinker Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE - Okla. -- The 422nd Supply Chain Management Squadron is comprised of approximately 144 highly skilled administrators, production management specialists, engineers, equipment specialists, logistics management officers and material/item managers. All working together to sustain weapon systems worldwide by providing supply chain management life cycle support, developing enterprise demand/supply plans, developing/implementing sourcing strategies, executing the supply plan, and executing cognizant design engineering authority to meet customer requirements for instruments-related commodity items. While that sounds complicated, Maj. Marie Meihls, the 422nd's commander, breaks it down in easier to understand language. "We provide worldwide sustainment support for instruments on all different types of aircraft -- all the cool little cockpit displays and instruments outside the aircraft that measure temperature or air pressure, more than 5,000 National Stock Number items, for our sister services and foreign military sales countries." The 422nd SCMS manages nearly 107,000 assets valued at $2.5 billion. The unit oversees organic or contract repair of parts as well as new buys; providing "Parts on Target" with a theme of cost-effective readiness through initiatives using the Air Force Sustainment Center Way. While the AFSC Way is in its early stages within the 422nd SCMS, its use of gates will identify and streamline processes, enabling efficiencies to be realized. One such process under review for gated metric development is the procurement process; which crosses multiple agencies and can extend upward of three years ... greatly impacting the unit's ability to support the warfighter. The procurement process is discussed in greater depth with respect to Constant Speed Drive assets later in this article. "Organically, we do work at all three complexes with most of the repair work done here at Tinker," said Major Meihls. "Overall, the work is split about 70 percent organic to 30 percent contract. Fiscal Year 14 requirements ran $179 million organic and $66 million contract." Some of the major contract suppliers include the Boeing Guidance Repair Center, Hamilton, GE Avionics, Goodrich and Honeywell. "The unit faces many challenges," said Major Meihls. "We touch almost every airframe in the inventory in one way or another. Requirements change every quarter for maintenance, flying hours fluctuate up and down so we try to figure out what future demands will be and buy to that." A perfect example of the kinds of challenges the unit must deal with is the TRU-2A Gyro System on the Army's HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. The Army had completed a modification replacing the analog system with a new digital Fiber Optic Gyro System, but had discovered some Safety of Flight problems that limited flying operations for more than 1,000 Blackhawks. "The Army wanted us to retrofit all their HH-60 Blackhawks with the old analog gyro as a backup system," said Bob Murray, chief, Navigation and Autopilot Flight. "The challenge was in rounding up as many gyros as we could from supply and getting them repaired while at the same time continuing support for the Air Force and other forces." Complicating the process was the fact, that as requirements for repair of the TRU-2A Gyro System were reduced, the repair line at Warner Robins eventually shut down. "It was a huge effort to re-establish the repair line, to make sure there were parts supportable and get mechanics back in the shop and trained," Mr. Murray said. The whole process was completed in June and took a year to complete. Another challenge involved T-38 Talon Fuel Flow Transmitters. The transmitter, which measures the rate of fuel flow, was being replaced after approximately 500 flight hours and was the number one driver for unscheduled engine pulls. "On a T-38, you can't just open a cowling to get to the engine," said Travis Ridinger, a logistics management specialist with the Aircraft Monitoring Instruments Flight. "You have to pull the whole engine out and to do that you have to take the back off of the aircraft." The process to remove the engine takes about 30 man-hours and only about 10 minutes to replace the fuel flow transmitter. Mr. Ridinger contacted the five training bases where field maintenance was being done and discovered that field maintenance procedures were not standardized at all the bases. "We took the repair work away from the using bases and sent it to the overhaul contractor," Mr. Ridinger said. "Now instead of replacing the transmitter every 500 flight hours, it is done at 900 flight hours, and has reduced the number of unscheduled engine pulls." The Airborne Instruments Flight is responsible for Flight Data Recorders, Altimeters, Flight Position Indicators - basically, any of the instruments the pilots use to fly the airplane, not only for the Air Force but the other services too, as well as U.S. allies or Foreign Military Sales customers. "We set the buyer repair requirements for the weapons systems," said Mr. Kelly Ford, flight chief. "All the airborne generators, constant speed drives, radar for the B-1 Lancer and E-3 Sentry aircraft. We manage 1,146 NSN items." The flight has the most number of buys in the squadron, and the item managers are an important cog in the success of the flight, said Kelli Tipton, logistics management specialist. "The item managers have to essentially manage the procurement of each item, from file maintaining to come up with the exact buy, to initiating the buy itself making sure all the data and documents from key players get sent up to the buyer," said Ms. Tipton. Once that's been done, the item manager has to keep in touch with the buyer to see how long it will take for the contract to be awarded and how long the vendors will take to bid on the item, tracking shipments and making sure everything is updated in the system. "It's a pretty big responsibility on the item manager's part," said Ms. Tipton. The procurement process takes longer for some items, such as constant speed drive housing castings. "The administrative lead time, which is the time it takes to get the castings on contract, may run 200 days," Mr. Ford said. "And the production lead time, where the casting is actually produced, may run 800 days." The reason for the long production lead time is that the magnesium castings are only produced at five locations. "We have to wait in line like everyone else to get the parts," said Mr. Ford. The Power Distribution and Environmental Controllers Flight is working an initiative to obtain hard to get parts according to flight chief, Marilyn Petricek. "As aircraft are aging, we are having a very difficult time, especially on the B-2 Spirit bomber, finding venders who can manufacture and repair piece parts for the aircraft," Ms. Petricek said. There are several items that have not received any bids due to the fact that the original manufacturers no longer make the parts. Coupled with that is the requirement for nuclear hardness on the B-2. "There are only two companies in the world that do nuclear hardness," said Ms. Petricek. In spite of these challenges, the flight still has to support the warfighter in keeping the planes flying. Ms. Petricek invited representatives from Northrup Grumman and Parker Hannifin to get together to form a partnership and find a solution to procuring additional spares for the Manual Fuel Control Panel. So far it seems to be working out. "We are using this as a test model and will be moving on to other items that are hard to procure," said Ms. Petricek. The interest in developing partnerships is spreading to other squadrons in the 848th Supply Chain Management Group who are facing similar problems in procuring parts for aging aircraft, particularly the T-38 Talon and B-1B Lancer. "They can use the pattern we created to go forth and sustain their lines," said Kellie Headlee, B-2 material manager.