RICHMOND, Va. –
Defense Logistics Agency Aviation at Oklahoma City’s B-1 Bomber Supply Chain Critical Readiness team was recently recognized by the Oklahoma City based Oklahoma Federal Executive Board during the 2022 Excellence in Government Awards program held May 3.
DLA Aviation at Oklahoma City, based at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, took home the Senior Team Award in the Government Innovation category for providing outstanding support to the Air Force’s B-1 Lancer long-range bomber aircraft.
Last spring, the Air Force ordered a safety stand-down of its entire B-1 fleet after concerns arose about the safety of the augmenter fuel filter housing. The AFFH is a component that filters fuel before it passes into the plane’s engines.
Richard Schwing, deputy commander of DLA Aviation at Oklahoma City, wrote the nominating package for the award. He said the AFFH assembly is a DLA managed item, but there was no existing contract in place.
Schwing said the DLA Aviation at Oklahoma City B-1 Bomber Supply Chain Critical Readiness team immediately developed a plan to resolve this situation. This involved coordinating the expedient delivery of AFFH parts from the B-1 operational fleet to Tinker AFB for inspection and expediting of the contract to provide new AFFH parts and ensuring immediate movement of parts to Tinker B-1 bases.
The team immediately began working directly with the Air Force B-1 System Program Office on Tinker AFB to ensure immediate shipment of AFFH assemblies to Tinker AFB for inspection and possible repair. Processes that normally took days were completed in minutes or a few hours, including ensuring all transactions flowed correctly in our supply and logistics systems.
The team then worked with a new supplier to have a contract solicited, reviewed, and awarded in 11 days, cutting out more than 100 days of lead time for this part.
“The team used their expertise, teamwork and warfighter-focus to ensure critically needed parts in support of the Air Force B-1 bomber fleet were under contract, shipped, received, and installed as fast as possible.” Schwing said. “This directly contributed to our warfighting customer, the U.S. Air Force, keeping a vital national asset in service.”
In addition, the team coordinated with the Air Force and the supplier of the AFFH to dramatically reduce a normal acquisition and production lead time of 294 days to 49 days for first part delivery.
“The teamwork, technical knowledge, and can-do attitude of this team directly led to the B-1 fleet being returned to service months earlier than previously determined feasible, allowing this critical national asset to continue flying missions in support of national defense,” Schwing said.