Improving depot maintenance a breakthrough performance area Published Nov. 23, 2010 By Brandice J. Armstrong Tinker Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- The 76th Maintenance Wing has big plans for fiscal 2011 and the subsequent five years. In late October, Maj. Gen. David Gillett, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center commander, announced four breakthrough performance areas during his State of the ALC presentation. Designed as focus areas to particular strategic goals, BPAs will enable strategic goal owners to broaden their problem-solving skills. The wing's goal, in accordance with the third breakthrough performance area, is Improve Depot Maintenance. The fiscal 2011 goal is 25 percent improvement in quality and 25 percent reduction in flow days. Over the next five years, the goals are 50 percent improvement in quality and 40 percent reduction in flow days. "I'm excited about the future of what's happening across the center," said Maj. Gen. Bruce Litchfield, 76th MXW commander. "Fiscal 2010 demonstrated pockets of excellence and in fiscal 2011 we expect to see all areas achieve success." The BPA correlates with the third strategic goal, Improve Depot Maintenance Quality and Productivity to Maximize Opportunities, which is also owned by the maintenance wing. General Litchfield said several factors dictated the BPA. They included the mission, work force needs and priorities, and finding better ways to do business so costs are reduced. To achieve the BPA, General Litchfield said the maintenance wing will continue to focus on three elements - safety of the work force, quality of the product produced and speed in which products are manufactured. "To do that, we're going to look at the process we use to do our maintenance work and we're asking for support from across the center to improve material availability, tech data support, information technology infrastructure, problem resolution and all the other critical enablers that make maintenance successful," General Litchfield said. Prior to the State of the ALC presentation, the maintenance wing had already seen success in achieving their three elements and ultimately the BPA. In early October, the 76th Aircraft Maintenance Group celebrated a huge achievement. In fiscal 2010, the group exceeded its KC-135 Stratotanker production goal by producing 55 aircraft, the highest number in 18 years. "In this year as we produced a record number of KC-135s, it is wonderful to see all the people in all the different organizations who stepped up to make that happen," General Litchfield said. "We've got to further improve that support with KC-135s and broaden it all production areas."