Kadena IPE team takes initiative, finishes on top

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Joe Kreidel
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  Conventional wisdom suggests that the best ideas often come from the bottom - from those people closest to a problem. 

This notion was recently proved by members of the 18th Logistics Readiness Squadron's Individual Protective Equipment Management Team, the only all-enlisted team to receive the 2009 Air Force Chief of Staff Team Excellence Award.

The award was presented for the team's redesign of the Chemical Warfare Defense Ensemble storage and distribution process here.

"It was truly a bottom-up initiative," said Chief Master Sgt. Teldra Jones, materiel management flight chief, of the redesigned process. "It wasn't something dictated, it was a case in which the people who work with this process every day took ownership and came up with a great solution."

The "problem" in this case was the serviceability of Kadena's individual protective equipment. Prior to the IPE team's redesign, every individual at Kadena was responsible for the storage and maintenance of the chemical warfare gear issued to them upon arrival, a reasonable arrangement at first glance. But Master Sgt. Kenneth Blair, mission readiness division superintendent, said that chemical warfare gear is in a constant state of flux - items expire and are added to or subtracted from the kit - which means that maintaining serviceable protective gear can be a challenge.

"We receive monthly updates that tell us exactly what those bags [the bags containing the chemical warfare gear] should contain. In one fell swoop, those updates can render unserviceable anywhere from 400 to 4000 bags," said Sergeant Blair. "That sort of turnover was just too much for people to stay on top of."

Serviceability was so low at one point - 60 percent - that the IPE section failed the base-wide Operational Readiness Inspection conducted in March 2008.

According to Chief Jones, who took over the materiel management flight in April 2008, the first step towards recovery was to make sure that the unit had the right people in the right positions. Once that was done the new IPE team was given wide latitude to come up with a resolution.

"We started by asking, 'Why, why, why?'" said Tech. Sgt. Dwayne Bailon, NCO in charge of the aircraft part store and a member of the IPE team. "Why are things this way? Is there a better way to do business?"

Convinced that centrally storing and maintaining CWDE gear would greatly improve serviceability, the IPE team requested and received permission from Pacific Air Forces to break with convention and house Kadena's protective gear at their warehouse.

Next, the team spent five days brainstorming at Kadena's Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century office, the end result of which was a redesigned storage, maintenance, and distribution system that they believed would both improve serviceability and ensure that Kadena personnel had timely access to their protective gear.

Key to the AFSO 21 process was the participation of Airmen with varying backgrounds, career fields, and areas of expertise.

"There were people there from IPE with intimate knowledge of the problem, and then there were folks from other career fields that were there to provide an outside perspective, some fresh insight," said Chief Jones.

Now, roughly 18 months later, serviceability hovers near 99 percent and the IPE team is reveling in their rags-to-riches success. Not only were they awarded the CSTEA, but their redesigned storage and distribution process was named an "Air Force Best Practice," meaning that the Air Force encourages all its bases to consider applying the IPE team's ideas.

"Winning the award can mostly be attributed to the strong flight-level leadership, where the initiative began, took root, and everyone at the individual level took ownership of turning the program around," said Lt Col. Doug Dickerson, 18th Logistics Readiness Squadron commander. "The spring 2008 ORI discovered major deficiencies and rated the program unsatisfactory. New flight leadership committed to excellence, built a strong team where everyone had buy-in, and took the ball all the way full court for the slam dunk."