CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. –
Last year, the 437th Aerial Port Squadron began one of the first lean initiative events coordinated through the Charleston AFB Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century office.
"At the aerial port, they take great pride in the fact that warfighter lives literally depend on the cargo they process each and every day," said 2nd Lt. Chris Jacobson, 437 APS Air Freight Flight.
Therefore, a tool that could expedite the cargo processes was given the utmost priority.
Lieutenant Jacobson was asked to lead the lean event for the squadron. The Lean team included Airmen from various sections who had a role in the cargo process. More importantly, Airmen were also selected to ensure the process would be analyzed by the people who actually do the work.
"This is a key quality of the Lean concept -- empower your workforce," said the lieutenant.
After the week-long event, they were able to come up with a revolutionary concept for the warehouse operations.
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The 437 APS determined that the biggest area for improvement was the amount of time cargo sat between steps, specifically the in-check area where cargo is downloaded from trucks and entered into the Global Air Transportation Executive System computer system. In the past during surge operations, cargo would sit in this area for up to 18 hours before it was entered into the airlift computer system.
It would be more efficient to process the cargo as it was downloaded from trucks and immediately placed into destination bays," said Lieutenant Jacobson. "Doing so would also give the opportunity to take the large items directly to a pallet and skip the destination bay storage. By taking this simple step, they reduced cargo processing time by more than 823 minutes."
Unfortunately, this simple concept represents an ideal state for cargo operations, and does not fully apply to real world cargo. A significant percentage of cargo arrives with multiple documentation issues. To solve this, they set up a training program for Airmen who frequently in-check cargo. Training with the customer service branch ensured that less cargo is placed in the cargo bay while shipping issues are resolved.
The ideal solution also fails when they are bombarded with truck surges. To combat this, they initiated a truck dock scheduling system, scheduling two trucks to arrive per hour. This was a significant accomplishment because it gave a daily forecast of the workload and an ability to match manning to workload.
"Implementing the Lean plan has been a challenge," said Lieutenant Jacobson. "Every time they solved a problem, a new one surfaced. Documentation first appeared to be the problem, then group shipments, then truck surges."
Most importantly, getting initial buy-in from squadron members was a recurring hurdle. However, they soon found that they were constantly improving the operations--something they take pride in, especially with the entire chain of command from the wing commander to General Duncan McNabb, Air Mobility Command commander, lauding the improvements.
Lastly, this endeavor was more than just a trial in efficiency. They implemented this concept on a surge of Marine Corps add-on-armor kits. They applied Lean thinking and sought out quality at the source by sending two Airmen to visit the armor shipper. As a result, the shipper re-sized the shipping container to properly fit on a standard airlift pallet. As hundreds of kits were delivered, they in-checked them and immediately transported them to a pallet. This reduced processing time to less than one hour for life-saving Operation Iraqi Freedom cargo.
"For the troops on the front line, the time saved in the cargo process can truly be the difference between life and death," said Lieutenant Jacobson.