Photo By Heather Wilburn | Frederick Mercier, left, and Matt McCann demonstrate the procedure used to verify...... read more read more
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, N.C. – When it comes to keeping tabs on assets, aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities can present a special set of challenges. Components move through various stages of assembly and disassembly, in and out of different shops, until the final product comes back together and moves back into the supply chain.
At Fleet Readiness Center East, a team of logisticians developed a tracking system that allows for all these variables while maintaining real-time visibility of the item’s location – and the system helped FRCE pass a Navy Working Capital Fund Supply Management audit with flying colors. When asked to locate 833 assets in 54 categories, FRCE completed the task with 100 percent accountability while only having to supply five instances of key supporting documents, or KSDs. A KSD provides documentation of an asset’s status and demonstrates proper execution of business practices in the event the asset’s status doesn’t match the information held by the auditors.
“The command’s performance in this audit is a momentous accomplishment, showing exceptional teamwork and stewardship of our warfighters’ resources,” said Stephen Barrow, head of FRCE’s Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) Logistics Department. “This audit touched over a quarter of our active inventory and was performed by an external auditing firm known for being tenacious in their execution. Achieving 100 percent accountability is nothing short of excellence.
“I’m incredibly proud of our people, who tirelessly support the day-to-day mission, and I’m especially proud of the team that developed the inventory tracking system that facilitated this successful audit outcome,” Barrow added. “They displayed a forward-leaning attitude and a dedication to excellence. Their success shows how our workforce drives innovation from the ground up when employees are empowered and have a passion for continual process improvement.”
While the development of the inventory tracking system rested with one group of logisticians, the audit’s success as a whole relied on work from a cross-disciplinary team that spanned logisticians, production controllers, planners and external stakeholders within Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers and Naval Supply Systems Command, said Matt McCann, workload acceptance (non-aircraft) business manager in the MRO Logistics Department’s Business Office at FRCE.
“Everyone really got on board for this; it was a big group effort. Our team was outstanding, the production controllers and planners did a great job, and COMFRC and NAVSUP did a really good job of facilitating information,” McCann said.
Conducted Sept. 14-18, the inventory took place near the end of the fiscal year, traditionally a very busy time in the business office.
“It occurred during a challenging time of the year. Everyone involved in this process was also trying to close out the previous fiscal year component schedule, and trying to lay flat the proposed fiscal year 2021 component schedule, and then we throw this major tasker at them in the last two weeks of the last month of the fiscal year; it was certainly a challenge,” McCann explained. “And we did a really good job on all three of those things. There was some heavy lifting by some absolute superstars, and we’re lucky to have them.”
While the audit – conducted virtually by Ernst and Young due to pandemic-related travel restrictions – only lasted five days, the preparations were months in the making.
“In December 2019, we had an audit that was more internal to NAVSUP and we started understanding what the requirement would be when Ernst and Young came in,” said Frederick “Fred” Mercier, component business manager for the MRO Logistics Business Office. “They came back in March, and it was all in preparation for this external audit with Ernst and Young.”
The internal audits gave FRCE a chance to put together a plan to optimize performance in the external audit.
“One of the big takeaways from the first two internal audits with NAVSUP was Fred Mercier looking at it and thinking there’s got to be a better way of doing business,” McCann said. “How do we look within all these separate systems, snap the chalk line and get the best snapshot of where our assets are at any given point in time, to the best of our ability?”
Mercier started working with Brock Mannino, an operations research analyst with MRO Logistics who was an intern in the Naval Acquisition Development Program at the time, and the two began seeking a solution. Eventually, Mannino developed a database that aggregated information from several systems the business office, COMFRC and NAVSUP use to track components. The new system, dubbed the Wall to Wall Inventory Tracking System (WITS), tracks asset movements into and out of FRCE, as well as internally from shop to shop.
“Our systems don’t really talk that well to each other, so we had to build a bridge between them,” Mannino said. “There were about four or five different documents that we had to crash together to create a more real-time view of the situation.
“We also take into account our perpetual inventory,” Mannino continued. “We do a perpetual count – we look back every 15 days to see if anything has moved, so if an asset moves from one shop to another, we’re still accounting for that inventory. We created a report to give us that kind of tracking ability, and included it in the database as well.”
Mercier and Mannino weren’t the only ones working toward a resolution, McCann added, but were the first to develop a workable prototype and, in the end, provided the best solution.
“Everyone up and down the chain, from COMFRC and NAVSUP all the way down to the depot, was trying to figure out the best way to perfect this process over the last six months, and for a while it felt like a moving target,” McCann said. “We probably spent hundreds of labor hours trying to figure out what’s acceptable versus what’s not acceptable, in terms of what auditors were looking for. It’s been a very arduous process.
“I remember coming in one day and the team was super excited, and wanted to meet with me and our MRO Logistics leadership,” he continued. “They said they really needed to get in front our leadership team, because they think they’ve cracked the code.”
Mercier and Mannino had been testing their new system on the monthly inventory, and were locating assets with accuracy above 99 percent. When FRCE was officially selected for the external audit, leadership approached McCann and asked what his predictions were for performance.
“I told them we’ve been rolling well above a 99 percent clip, and I expect to be right there with the official audit,” he said. “And then to watch all that planning and preparation fall into place – it was really great to see all that hard work yield results.”
The auditors, who had a remote presence via Microsoft Teams, provided a list of assets to inventory each morning. After analyzing the list and cross-referencing the WITS, the teams working the audit were able to go directly to the shops holding the items and show them to the auditors in almost every instance. In situations where the asset was no longer located in the shop indicated by the audit materials, the team was able to track the asset to its new location in the MRO process. Sometimes, the asset had moved into a new stage of maintenance, repair or overhaul; in other situations, the asset had been sent to packaging and preservation for movement, or had already returned to the supply chain. In every instance, the team was able to provide either the asset or the KSDs showing where the asset had been moved to and accepted.
“That was the art of the process, that we just needed 10 minutes in the morning to go through the list and get organized, and then walk out of there and then just get it done,” Mercier said. “(The auditors) seemed surprised. I think that’s part of what they were looking for, to say that we actually have our stuff organized, that we can actually go out and find it. It just takes a little while because it’s not stored on a shelf someplace in a warehouse; our inventory moves through the plant.”
The auditors seemed impressed with the functionality of FRCE’s new system, McCann said.
“I think, once we went through the first day, they realized we mean business,” he said. “We’re not guessing where this stuff is, we’re walking right to it. There was no wasted movement of effort; it was direct and purposeful and efficient. We know the story to each one of our items, and I think we showed that. The data gave us the ability to prove what we were saying.”
McCann said he couldn’t imagine an inventory going more smoothly or successfully.
“We were as prepared as we could possibly be,” he said. “You spend months preparing and testing, and you just don’t know where the wrinkle is going to be. But then you get to day two or three and you start thinking, ‘Hey, I think we’re going to do pretty well with this!’ You have a good battle rhythm, a good drumbeat and your systems are working. And because those systems are working, you have the capacity to address any of those random or unforeseen issues that can hit you.”
Mercier and Mannino continue to test the WITS against FRCE’s monthly inventory, looking for ways to improve the system.
“We’re constantly looking to improve our processes,” McCann agreed. “Is some of it time consuming? Sure, but it has paid dividends. And the theory could be applied across other programs for other inventory areas that we have, too. Other programs would have different requirements, but it would at least allow for a building block on how to efficiently track assets as they move throughout the plant.”
In the end, the system worked because it was well-designed – but also because Mercier and Mannino cared about what they were doing and took pride in their work.
“I cannot put into words how important these two were in getting this together,” McCann said. “This is what happens when you have people who take ownership in their jobs, who really care about the outcome and will put in the effort to make things better.”
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 $900 million. The depot generates combat air power for America’s Marines and naval forces while serving as an integral part of the greater U.S. Navy; Naval Air Systems Command; and Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers.
| Date Taken: | 12.17.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 12.17.2020 09:16 |
| Story ID: | 385193 |
| Location: | CHERRY POINT, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 113 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, FRCE aces Navy Working Capital Fund audit; team develops new inventory system to ensure success, by Heather Wilburn, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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