AMCOM Aviation Maintenance:
Within the organic industrial base (OIB), the Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD) serves as the Army’s rotary wing maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) Center of Industrial and Technical Excellence (CITE); delivering readiness to the Joint Warfighter through our focus on performing better and faster while controlling cost. Our mission is to return rotary wing aircraft and components to the Department of Defense and other government organizations with uncompromising quality, at the lowest possible cost, in the shortest amount of time possible. Supporting efforts include training support for Soldiers and units; laboratory, chemistry and metallurgy support for Army accident investigation; and depot field teams deployed permanently at Fort Rucker and as needed worldwide.
FY 14 Update
Despite the challenges presented by the effects of reduced demand and resources, CCAD production met our revised schedule and supplied tens of thousands of components and 74 aircraft to the Warfighter. We also retained our ISO AS9110B certification and are on track to attain Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Voluntary Protection Program’s (VPP) Star Status. As of this writing, CCAD is meeting fleet sustainment demands as we close out 1st Quarter FY 15, across our product lines, with quality, schedule, revenue and cost conformance.
Operational Imperatives
Industrial and aviation safety, quality and schedule, program and cost management are the tenets of our operation. Industrial safety in terms of safeguarding our workforce and the environment is the foundation of our business. CCAD is committed to re-attain Star Status by adhering to the critical standards of VPP. Star worksites demonstrate a successful safety and health management program and have a lost workday incidence rate of at least 50 percent below the average of its industry, a standard we consistently operate well below.
SPC Joshua Fleming from 277th Avn. Spt. Bn., 10th Cbt. Avn. Bde., Fort Drum, NY, prepares to weld as part of the hands-on training available to Soldiers at the Corpus Christi Army Depot. U.S. ARMY PHOTOS BY ERVEY MARTINEZ, CCAD PHOTOGRAPHERHazards abound in our industrial plant. Machines, chemicals, moving equipment, vehicles, and aircraft require keen situational and operational awareness. CCAD employees, contractors, and Soldiers integrate safety and risk mitigation into every aspect of depot operations. By fostering a culture of safety and wellness in our organization, we optimize the readiness of our workforce and ultimately our ability to support the Warfighter.
Aviation safety is a critical component our operation. CCAD aircrews successfully deliver completely overhauled, crash or battle damage repaired aircraft after significant maintenance test flight. We share airspace with U.S. Navy and Marine Corps student aviators, and participate in a joint safety and standardization program with Naval Air Station Corpus Christi (NASCC). Our superb performance in safely delivering very high quality aircraft is a result of deliberate effort from every pilot and crew chief, backed up by the entire CCAD workforce.
Quality and schedule conformance are key factors in accomplishing our mission. As a flight critical MRO facility, we know that our reputation and the safety of our Soldiers is only as good as the quality of the last aircraft or component delivered. We ensure the quality of our products by carefully adhering to our business operating systems, under ISO AS9110B.
Engineering support is critical for quality and our success. The support we receive from the Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center, particularly the Aviation Maintenance Engineering Division collocated with us here on NASCC; enables us to validate our processes to produce world class, flight critical components and structural repairs. In order to meet the schedule coordinated with our customers, we carefully manage assets, material, tools and manpower to execute more than 640 programs.
Controlling cost is critical to keeping unit funded costs as low as possible for the components and aircraft we produce. A superb team of program managers, business and financial operations professionals at CCAD team with AMCOM Aviation Logistics Center experts to focus on cost avoidance and audit readiness as we manage billions of dollars annually across hundreds of contracts and programs.
Direct Support of Units in the Field
Providing direct support to our Soldiers with depot-level training and on-site support is a combat multiplier. CCAD artisans offer Soldiers hands-on aviation maintenance training on the production floor throughout the depot, sharing decades of expertise across the full spectrum of aviation maintenance specialties. Soldiers are able to hone their craft while living in our barracks at no cost to the unit. In FY14, we supported a total of 361 Soldiers in our facility from every component of our service.
We provide Soldiers training for airframes, aircraft rigging, nondestructive test/inspection, soldering, aircraft electrical, power train, power plants, and prop and rotor. We continue to expand training to meet the evolving needs of our aviation commanders, and stand ready to provide subject matter experts in every aspect of maintenance to meet those requirements.
Our mission to assess and repair forward-deployed aircraft and components worldwide is being utilized increasingly every year over the last decade. Our depot field teams supported 137 missions across the globe in FY14, providing permanent on-site depot support at Fort Rucker and as far afield as Honduras, Japan, Korea and Afghanistan. Our CCAD liaison in theater has supported the Combat Aviation Brigades with aviation maintenance expertise since 2005, extending our support to the point of critical need.
Posturing for the Future –
AMCOM Commander’s Intent to meet the Army’s 2025 End State Requirements CCAD is serving as one of three pilot sites to upgrade the Army’s Enterprise Resource Planning system to add shop floor automation, or Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) Increment 2, the Complex Assembly Manufacturing Solution (CAMS) for the OIB. CCAD has operated using LMP since 2009 with 1500 users. LMP made a tremendous impact on our ability to manage programs, and significantly improved business planning, manufacturing, finance, and human resource, supply chain and inventory management.
Increasing visibility and data tracking provides metrics and oversight to streamline processes, target cost and time saving opportunities at every level of production. CAMS and shop floor automation will enable improvements that have never been possible at CCAD until now. CAMS will increase the number of users to every employee in the plant, almost 5000 people. CAMS streamlines our processes, eliminates approximately half of the quality defects currently identified on the shop floor, and introduces nearly paperless technology. Additionally, CAMS will give us accurate real-time information and increase visibility and accountability for all material and people working on the production line.
Setting Conditions for Success
Building opportunity through public-private partnerships is an example of how we must optimize limited resources across both the organic and defense industrial base. Currently, CCAD benefits from technical, engineering, logistics, supply and services partnerships with several private sector partners. Reach-back into the tremendous capacity of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to quickly solve complex problems, including integrating CAMs onto our shop floor, is a great example of synergy between government and industry. The future of the OIB success will require us to build on these and additional partnerships.
Delivering readiness to the Army now and in 2025 requires implementing continuous process improvement today. Embracing and integrating CAMS into our operation is critical to improving program management and our performance for our supported units and Soldiers. We will continue to pursue opportunities to improve aviation maintenance by pursuing new technology, developing our workforce in composites and advanced skills that will be required in the future; and by investing in new tools, processes, and test equipment to minimize costs and production time.
In 2025, we will be operating out of a state-of-the-art, designed for Lean Six Sigma facility; with our superbly trained and capable workforce; with tools, supply chain, and enterprise resource planning system sufficient to meet our nation’s needs in peacetime and in war. For the current and future fight, CCAD is here to support Soldiers and commanders in the field.
COL Billingsley Garner Pogue III has served as the Corpus Christi Army Depot Commander since July 2013, SGM Martin D. Dickinson as the CCAD senior enlisted advisor since November 2013, and Brigitte Rox as a public affairs specialist at Corpus Christi, TX.
