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JBSA News
NEWS | Oct. 28, 2016

CPI event results in solutions to increase IFF simulator missions

Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph Public Affairs

The 12th Operations Group at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph is answering the call to meet the Air Force’s need for more fighter pilots.

A Continuous Process Improvement team met Aug. 23 to brainstorm ways to increase simulator missions per day by 20 percent to accommodate the additional students enrolled in the 435th Fighter Training Squadron’s Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals course.

The team, which consisted of officials and instructors from the 12th Operations Support Squadron, the 435th FTS and the 560th Flying Training Squadron, identified 14 possible countermeasures to increase simulator usage and settled on three primary solutions.

Two months later, the results are promising.

“It’s going great so far,” said David Bernacki, 12th OSS lead IFF weapon systems civilian simulator instructor and facilitator for the CPI event. “At the time of the event, we were accomplishing 10 simulator missions per day and we needed to bump it up to 13 to 14 per day."

“In the first month, September, we exceeded our capacity to accomplish 260 simulators and reached a capacity of 277, which was more than two days ahead of the simulator time line for that month,” he said. “Our results in October should be better due to efficient scheduling processes resulting from the CPI event.

Team member Frank King, 12th OSS lead civilian simulator instructor, called the event a success and said it exemplified teamwork.

“Being honest, I was not sure how we could meet the significant increase in student training requirements,” he said. “However, our team thinking outside the proverbial box successfully met the challenge. This is a great example of teamwork using the CPI methodology."

Another team member, Maj. Jeffrey Nelson, 435th FTS flight commander, said it was “great to see the stakeholders involved come together and innovate operations to eliminate inefficiency.”

“The teamwork and brainstorming session revealed how we can maximize capacity without increasing the workload of any one member of the team,” he said.

Bernacki, who is an Air Force-certified CPI black belt, attributed much of the increase in simulator missions to assigning operational control of the T-38C unit training device used by the 560th FTS to the 435th FTS.

The unit training device is a simulator that accomplishes less complex missions, such as instrument and emergency procedures training, due to the limited visual representation compared with the simulators known as the operational flight trainer and the weapon systems trainer.

The civilian simulator instructors in the 12th OSS conduct T-38C pilot instructor training and IFF fighter training in the unit training device, operational flight trainer and weapon systems trainer. Typically, one or two IFF instructors are assigned to each student for a three-hour simulator session, which includes a briefing, the sim mission and a debriefing.

The primary reason the 12th OSS was not able to accommodate the recent increase in fighter pilot students initially was the reduction of the simulator workday from 12 hours to 10 hours a year ago, Bernacki said.

Revising the sim contract to extend the window to 12 hours again would also accommodate the additional students, he said.

Among the other countermeasures identified was conducting instructor pilot emergency procedures evaluations in the operational flight trainer simulators from 4-5 p.m. daily, adding an estimated 80 sims per year, Bernacki said.

The Air Force’s Continuous Process Improvement initiative, formerly known as Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, is an eight-step approach to identify waste, focus activities on eliminating it and maximize resources to satisfy other requirements.

In addition to a facilitator and team members, CPI events include “champions,” who dedicate resources, assets and people to an initiative, and “process owners,” who lead an organization or group, a team lead and other member.

This CPI event featured Lt. Col. Robin Baldwin, 12th OSS commander, and Lt. Col. Jason Earley, 435th FTS commander, as champions and Lt. Col. Stephen Leprell, 12th OSS director of operations, as process owner.

Team members in addition to King and Nelson were Allen Bussey and Ben Stagg, 12th OSS; Lt. Col. Eric Waddell and Capt. Adrian Anulewicz, 435th FTS; and Lt. Col. Doug Witmer, 560th FTS.