Fleet Readiness Center East (FRCE) recently achieved a significant production milestone by eliminating high-priority backorders for auxiliary power units (APU) used in the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, bolstering the platform’s mission readiness.
Challenges related to the availability of parts and materials used in the APU threatened to keep a number of the Navy’s Super Hornets on the ground and led to a number of high-priority backorders known as Issue Priority Group 1 (IPG-1).
Scott Barry, the co-lead for the F/A-18 and EA-18G Program Office’s (PMA-265) Propulsion and Power Integrated Project Team, credited FRCE with working quickly to increase production throughput of the APUs, cutting down on backorders.
“By looking at innovative ways on expediting part deliveries, reviewing current inspection methods by engineers and increasing efficiencies in processes, FRCE eliminated IPG-1s within a staggering 12-month time frame,” said Barry. “This ensured that the Super Hornet is ready to fight tonight and enabled the Fleet to perform their mission.”
PMA-265 is responsible for acquiring, delivering and sustaining the F/A-18 and EA-18G aircraft, ensuring mission success for U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators, as well as international partners. The Super Hornet is designed to meet current Navy fighter mission requirements, maintain Fleet air defense and close air support, and increase mission range.
Working closely with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP), FRCE exceeded PMA-265’s production expectations, building more APUs than requested and providing assets to fill critical requirements.
“The Super Hornets are the backbone of the U.S. Navy’s carrier air wing,” said FRCE Commanding Officer Capt. James Belmont. “Ensuring they are mission ready is a top priority. Everyone involved was committed to providing the warfighters with the APUs they needed. Working together with our partners like this, there’s no challenge we can’t overcome.”
An APU is a gas turbine engine that serves as an independent power source for the aircraft. Although separate from the main engines, it is a key component that provides supplementary power while the aircraft is on the ground and during some phases of flight.
To ensure the availability of APUs for the Super Hornet, an integrated product team of experts from FRCE, PMA-265, DLA and NAVSUP was formed.
“This was a very tight team,” said FRCE Components Division Director Lenny Domitrovits. “Everything was being expedited. We were facing the challenge of increasing depot repair throughput despite supply constraints, and we needed to do this as quickly as possible. It was a massive effort.”
One major part of this effort involved ensuring an adequate supply of the parts needed to repair and overhaul an APU. According to Sean Doss, a component planner in FRCE’s Centralized Coordination Department, there are more than 540 parts listed on the Super Hornet APU’s bill of materials.
“A bill of material is basically a listing of all the parts necessary to make a component whole after rework,” said Doss. “We have every part listed so we know exactly how many parts it's going to take to rework a component. You might not need every part, but every part needs to be listed on the bill. This way we know exactly what is needed if we had to replace every single part.”
Domitrovits credited DLA with providing FRCE’s artisans with the parts necessary to rework the APUs despite limited time constraints.
“DLA really came through,” Domitrovits said. “It was a herculean effort on their part.”
Barry also cited the close collaboration between FRCE and DLA as playing a crucial role in putting overhauled APUs in stock and keeping the Super Hornet flying.
“FRCE and DLA teamed together to identify and aggressively attack supply constraints,” said Barry. “They got ahead of this in a high pressure environment, and ultimately, tripled the depot repair throughput.”
In addition to obtaining the necessary parts and materials, the integrated product team also worked to develop and enhance procedures and processes for inducting, reworking and sending out APUs. Engineers, logisticians, and artisans tackled problems ranging from the creation of new tooling and fixtures needed to work on the units to enhancing the efficiency of testing completed components.
“There were a lot of lessons learned and one good one we pulled away from this is empowering each person to come forth with ideas of how to increase efficiency and production in a time of constrained resources,” said Domitrovits. “Pretty much every area came up with something innovative.”
According to Doss, team members from a variety of disciplines worked together closely and looked beyond their assigned roles to examine the APU repair and overhaul process as a whole.
“There’s that old saying about staying in your swim lane,” said Doss. “We didn't stay in our swim lanes. We're all helping one another to get things done faster, to get these APUs out to the Fleet. If the warfighter needs one now, we would like to be able to push one out now while maintaining the highest quality.
“One thing we continue to concentrate on for this particular product is turnaround time reduction,” Doss continued. “It's a never ending process – always continually improving.”
Artisans working in FRCE’s Engine Driven Compressor and Gas Turbine Shop were tasked with building units for the Super Hornet. To support the needs of the Fleet, the artisans had to drastically increase the number of APUs they built each month.
According to Justin Rimmer, shop supervisor, this involved more than simply building more units. Increasing output meant enhancing work processes as well as utilizing new tools and training new personnel.
“We have some really good artisans who’ve been doing this for a long time and they just hit this out of the park,” said Rimmer. “With so many people building at one time, we had new fixtures and new tooling made to handle the number of units we were producing. We also requested some new employees to build up our staff. Each month we met our numbers and, in many cases, exceeded them.”
Rimmer said his team was able to accomplish this despite the Super Hornet APU workload being just one facet of the shop’s responsibilities.
“We have a schedule we have to meet across the board, not just for that one APU,” said Rimmer. “We also build units for the H-60 Black Hawk helicopter and the legacy Hornet. We just got workload back for the P-3, which has been in sun down for six years. We're also working to stand up capability on the new F-35 turbomachine.
“The artisans in this shop didn’t skip a beat even while standing up these capabilities at the same time as getting this workload out,” Rimmer continued. “We know where these APUs are going and we want the warfighter to have not only the units they need, but the best units we can send them.”
Domitrovits said this desire to support the warfighter was a driving factor for the entire integrated product team.
“When all the IPG-1s were resolved so far ahead of schedule, it demonstrated how the product team came together and everything came to fruition,” said Domitrovits. “We were able to do things that nobody thought were possible. We had to – this has a direct result on mission readiness. These APUs are going to the Fleet and enabling the warfighter to do their job. That’s what we are here to do.”
FRCE is North Carolina's largest maintenance, repair, overhaul and technical services provider, with more than 4,000 civilian, military and contract workers. Its annual revenue exceeds $1 billion. The depot provides service to the fleet while functioning as an integral part of the greater U.S. Navy; Naval Air Systems Command; and Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers.
Learn more at www.navair.navy.mil/frce or https://www.facebook.com/FleetReadinessCenterEast.