Photo By Staff Sgt. Johnathon Wines | U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Cody LaVigne, 3rd Munitions Squadron stockpile supervisor,...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- “Accelerate change or lose.” That’s the message Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., has been pushing to the force since he’s been in the seat.
For Airmen like U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Cody LaVigne, this message really resonated.
“The goal going forward is for ammunitions troops to be faster and more precise when delivering munitions,” he explained.
LaVigne, the stockpile supervisor for the 3rd Munitions Squadron at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, was tasked with leading a team of Airmen to write and implement local procedures aimed at streamlining the process by which munitions are documented and moved.
The 3rd MUNS is responsible for arming the lethal 3rd Wing assets, mainly the F-22 Raptors. They are in charge of a stockpile of Guided Bomb Units, or GBU-32(V)1s, and countermeasure mods like chaff and flare.
The 3rd WG, which celebrated its centennial in 2019, has been providing national defense for generations, and its personnel are determined to keep their unit at the forefront of innovation.
“We used our Munitions Integrated Tablet with our new munitions accountability software, Theater Integrated Combat Munitions System,” LaVigne said. “We wrote local procedures for using the MIT to document and move munitions using the integrated barcode scanner. This new procedure will allow our Airmen to move our assets quicker while limiting human errors.”
LaVigne has currently dedicated 250 hours to the task of developing automated movement capability for 2,300 munition line items valued at $131 million, and has directed 43 personnel from four work centers to label over 2,500 locations and 1,000 pieces of equipment across 44 warehouse structures and flight line activities.
LaVigne’s efforts directly led to developing the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for JBER and lessons learned for future Air Force-wide mandated implementation.
This new process allows automated munitions movements and transfers within the TICMS by scanning containers, locations and assets to greatly reduce human error and save countless hours of manually processing movement transactions.
“I enjoyed my role in this process,” LaVigne acknowledged. “I had a good team working alongside me. We knew our goal and used a lot of problem solving and communication to figure out the processes that would work best for JBER.”
According to his teammates, LaVigne’s dedication and team leadership skills are key in problem solving the various obstacles while maintaining a uniformed method for application against munitions used in diverse mission sets.
“Tech. Sgt. LaVigne has a lot of useful knowledge for the tasks we need to accomplish, as well as a confidence in fixing problems that occur,” said Senior Airman Nathaniel Ericson, 3rd MUNS operations custody technician.
Although LaVigne is already making an impact in his squadron and the Air Force, he says he’s excited to continue developing himself and his team and furthering the mission of ammunitions.
| Date Taken: | 08.31.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 08.31.2021 16:25 |
| Story ID: | 404259 |
| Location: | ALASKA, US |
| Web Views: | 197 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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