Leaning, transforming efforts at Tinker AFB paying off

Published May 1, 2008
By Brandice Armstrong
72nd Air Base Wing Public Affairs

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- Leaning and transforming the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center here continues to reap benefits.

Leaning and transforming is the second of five goals in the OC-ALC Strategic Plan designed to map the air logistics center's future successes.

"Leaning and transforming the center is really transforming the way we do business," said Maj. Gen. Loren Reno, OC-ALC commander. "It's recognizing, encouraging, stimulating and inspiring people to take change and make it happen."

General Reno used an analogy about the recent success of welding technicians leaning a process to better illustrate his point.

"They were so dissatisfied with a process that took three days with a 7 percent success rate," the general said. "Without a formal project, they wrote new tech data, received engineering approval for a new process that doesn't take three days but now takes three hours and has a 100 percent success rate.

"This process is so good that the company that manufactures the engine asked our people to show them how they do it," General Reno continued. "And one of our allies, a foreign nation's air force which repairs this engine in their country, asked us to send a team to their country to show them how we do it."

Leaning and transforming the center will eliminate waste at the center, according to Wade Wolfe, Transformation, Integration and Process Improvements Division chief with the Plans and Programs Directorate.

"We have phenomenal people at Tinker, it's just that we have some processes that need improvement," Mr. Wolfe said. "We want to take our phenomenal people and change our processes to accentuate the talent we have here at Tinker."

Col. Evan Miller, OC-ALC Plans and Programs director, who helped outline the second goal, said there is no set timeline to get the objective accomplished. He said this objective, like the remaining four, will continually guide the center toward achieving success.

"The goals will help guide us over the next five, 10, 15 or 20 years to make sure we're doing the right kinds of things," Colonel Miller said. "The neat thing about our strategic plan is it should be enduring and (we'll) continue to purse every one of those goals."

The four other goals include securing the right workload, leading aircraft availability improvement program achievement, improving OC-ALC operations through the Defense Logistics Agency and the Air Force Global Logistics Support Agency, and developing people ... better.