A team of technicians with the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB, Okla., succeeded in determining (good news) what caused the F100 engine fan blade shop to lose nearly $16 million (bad news) over an 18-month period and also managed to devise a method to “significantly reduce costs” (good news) in the future, according to a Jan. 26 Tinker release. Team leader Michelle Waggoner, an industrial engineering technician, attributed much of the problem to supply management and parts integrity, which she said are “a critical area of our business.” She noted, “Simple mistakes in procedure can cost the government and ultimately the taxpayers millions of dollars.” According to Brian deFonteny, with the Black Belt Center Transformation Office, the fan blade shop’s previous method for ordering and receiving parts was “very confusing,” and because of that the “over and under ordering of required fan blades for each F100 engine was inevitable.” The F100 engine powers the Air Force’s F-15 fleet and most of its F-16s. (Tinker report by Brandice Armstrong)
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.