Photo By Senior Airman Brooke Keisler | Senior Airman Armando Espinoza, 31st Logistics Readiness Squadron vehicle maintenance...... read more read more
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AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy -- Without vehicles to transport assets, goods, or personnel, it would be very difficult to complete the mission. The 31st Logistics Readiness Squadron Vehicle Management flight helps keep Aviano AB mission-ready by maintaining the vehicles for all the units across Aviano, including geographically separated units.
“As far as the mission here, I don't foresee most of the things on base, especially flightline related items, getting properly done without vehicle maintenance,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. James Owens, 31st LRS vehicle maintenance supervisor. “Nothing happens unless vehicle maintenance has their vehicles up and running and stuff can get pushed out.”
The 31st LRS Vehicle Maintenance flight consists of different sections: the fleet management and analysis (FM&A) flight, the heavy and light duty sections, fire truck and refueling, electrical, customer service, and tactical vehicles sections. Many of the units are encompassed inside the FM&A and heavy and light duty sections.
The FM&A flight manages and tracks the utilization and scheduled maintenance of more than 960 vehicles valued at approximately $143 million at Aviano AB, including 12 geographically separated units.
The types of vehicles the FM&A team manages includes sedans, vans, trucks, bobtails, forklifts, Humvees, security forces patrol vehicles, 31st Civil Engineer Squadron heavy duty vehicles, busses, firetrucks, refueling trucks and more.
“We manage the utilization of each vehicle by tracking oil changes, rotating of tires, brakes, safety systems, headlights, blinkers, taillights, steering wheels and more,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Vincent Barbere, 31st LRS FM&A supervisor. “Our job is to manage and maintain these for every single unit. There's so much back and forth with each unit that our job is required to keep up to date.”
The team uploads the maintenance records in a program called the defensive property and accountability system (DPAS). This system tracks each vehicle’s maintenance cycle, utilization, number of accidents and more.
The FM&A team is comprised of nine Airmen and Italian local nationals that manage 17-25 programs across the base including accidents and abuse, Logistics Installation Mission Support-Enterprise View, scheduled maintenance and the war reserve material program. They also provide vehicles for deployments and temporary duty assignments.
“My favorite part of my job is seeing the extent of what we do,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jonathan Leaverette, 31st LRS NCOIC of FM&A. “How far we can get a vehicle, whether that be for a deployment or TDY, and how fast we can get it there.”
The FM&A section works in unison with the heavy and light duty maintenance section. This team physically works on each vehicle that comes into the shop to make sure they’re serviceable.
“As far as FM&A and us go, they handle all the paperwork side of the house in documenting,” said Owens. “Say we get a brand-new vehicle that comes in, we would in- process it. We would inspect the vehicle, put the Air Force regulation plates on it, and push it to FM&A who would then contact whoever it's going to belong to. They're like our liaison to the units.”
The heavy and light duty maintenance section is a combination of two different career fields within vehicle maintenance, A-shreds and C-shreds, explained Owens. A-shreds work on fire trucks and refueling trucks, while C-shreds work on flightline equipment such as 60k Aircraft Cargo Loaders along with light duty work.
“Light duty will work on all of our regular trucks, including vehicles that haven’t been modified and vehicles that are good to drive on the road as an everyday vehicle such as Humvees,” said Owens. “Most of the vehicles in heavy duty will be specialized vehicles in some way, whether it be a car that’s not road legal or bobtails.”
When a vehicle comes in for scheduled maintenance, it goes through the customer service section to be inspected and a work order is opened. Then it goes to whichever respective section it needs be worked on.
“Most of the things that we're going to look for immediately are safety related items,” said Owens. “We look at the wipers, lights, seatbelts and anything that could harm someone if not working correctly. If it's a specialty vehicle, say a forklift, we'll look at the chains because it will have chains or hoses.
Each section of vehicle maintenance plays an important role in ensuring each vehicle they manage is serviceable and mission ready.
“Our job is important because it's up to us to make sure vehicles are maintained properly so people can use them downrange or even use them locally to complete their mission,” said Leaverette. “It's up to us to make sure they have the means and vehicles necessary for their mission.
| Date Taken: | 10.28.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 10.28.2022 04:02 |
| Story ID: | 432183 |
| Location: | AVIANO AIR BASE, IT |
| Web Views: | 173 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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