Beyond authorized versus assigned: aircraft maintenance personnel capacity.(logistics Combat Support)

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Introduction

Most would agree that aircraft maintenance has been and continues to be a challenging, complex task involving a delicate balance of resources to include personnel, equipment, and facilities. This balancing act occurs in a very hectic environment. The Air Force flies 430 sorties per day in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. A mobility aircraft takes off somewhere in world approximately every 90 seconds. (1) As the demand for aircraft continues to grow, the number of airmen who support these aircraft is declining. "Since 2001 the active duty Air Force has reduced its end-strength by almost 6 percent but our deployments have increased by at least 30 percent, primarily in support of the Global War on Terror." (2) This reduction in personnel is part of the Air Force's process of drawing down the total force by approximately 40,000 people, with many of these cuts in aircraft maintenance career fields. Also adding to the growing maintenance workload is an aircraft fleet which now averages almost 24 years old, with the average age still increasing. (3)

When it comes to aircraft maintenance, the Air Force depends on metrics to know whether or not we are measuring up to standards. Several metrics exist which attempt to measure the success or failure of our maintainers' efforts. One of the most recognized metrics is the total not mission capable maintenance (TNMCM) rate. Air Force Instruction 21-101 describes TNMCM as "perhaps the most common and useful metric for determining if maintenance is being performed quickly and accurately." (4) Although a lagging type indicator, it is one of several key metrics followed closely at multiple levels of the Air Force. Over the last several years, the TNMCM rate for many aircraft gradually increased. This fact was highlighted during a 2006 quarterly Chief of Staff of the Air Force Health of the Fleet review. Follow-on discussions ultimately resulted in the Air Force Materiel Command Director of Logistics (AFMC/A4) requesting the Air Force Logistics Management Agency (AFLMA) to conduct an analysis of TNMCM performance with the C-5 Galaxy aircraft as the focus. AFLMA conducted two studies in support of this request.

Background

The C-5 TNMCM Study II (AFLMA project number LM200625500) included five objectives. One of those objectives was to determine root causes of increasing TNMCM rates for the C-5 fleet. An extensive, repeatable methodology was developed and utilized to scope an original list of 184 factors down to two potential root causes to analyze in-depth for that particular study. These two factors were aligning maintenance capacity with demand, and the logistics departure reliability versus TNMCM paradigm. To address the root cause factor of aligning maintenance capacity with demand, a method of determining available maintenance capacity was needed. To meet this objective, a new factor designated as net effective personnel (NEP) was developed. NEP articulates available maintenance capacity in a more detailed manner that goes beyond the traditional authorized versus assigned personnel viewpoint. The remainder of this article describes the need for NEP and how the NEP calculations were developed during the C-5 TNMCM Study II. The NEP calculations were ultimately used in conjunction with historical demand to propose base-level maintenance capacity realignments resulting in projected improvements in the C-5 TNMCM rate.

Personnel as a Constraint