Air Force Materiel Command’s Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins AFB, Ga., is the first public sector depot to receive what is considered the Nobel prize in manufacturing—the Shingo Prize, reports the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph. The award has gone to private sector manufacturing for the past 17 years. The ALC won for its enhanced efficiency in the overhaul of C-5 airlifters.
Pentagon leaders, eager to move fast and avoid pitfalls that have plagued defense acquisition in the past, are handing authorities and oversight for some of their biggest programs to officers outside the traditional structure. But the Air Force and Space Force four-stars given those responsibilities say they don’t intend their jobs to be a permanent change to the system.