AGE shop unveils new fuel tank on flight line

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Alesia Goosic
  • 355th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  The 355th Equipment Maintenance Squadron Aerospace Ground Equipment shop unveiled a new fuel tank located on the flight line Dec. 17, a project that has been in the works since October 2006.

The new fuel tank, which is an Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century initiative, will ultimately save time, money and manpower while providing more efficiency.

Master Sgt. Stephen Daigle, 355th EMS AGE flight chief said the initiative will have a major impact on how the AGE flight uses its resources.

"It (the new fuel tank) will save 520 man-hours and 1,170 miles annually," he said. "It will also increase driver safety because of less time on POV road and save on wear and tear of vehicles with over 2,300 less foreign object checks."

The idea for the new fuel tank was first pitched by Staff Sgt. David Ballista at a 355th Maintenance Group commander's breakfast in October 2006. And at the ribbon cutting ceremony Dec. 17, Col. Dennis Shumaker, 355th Maintenance Group commander spoke about the importance for all Airmen to share their ideas on how to improve day to day operations with AFSO 21 initiatives.

"AFSO 21 is not a buzz word," he said. "It's reality. It's making our lives better every day, especially in these times of scarce resources. We have got hundreds of initiatives going on across the maintenance group here, some are big, some are small. The thing is, the small ones, when you group them all together, pay big dividends." He also said, "I know it seems the process from suggestion to solution took awhile but just like the refuel tank, it is worth it and I'm working to reduce the time it takes to see results."

Tech. Sgt. Matthew Vera, the AFSO 21 representative for the 355th Maintenance Group defined the basic concept of AFSO 21 and explained the impact the new fuel tank will have on the Airmen of the AGE flight.

"It's (AFSO 21) about applying common sense to everything that we do to see if we can actually improve upon a process and make it better," he said. "For instance, this project that we just finished has to do with saving the AGE drivers time spent going off the flight line area to refuel at the AGE yard. There's thousands of man hours saved, plenty of time saved on the wear and tear of the vehicles and also the time saved having to do foreign object damage checks as a result of departing the FOD fence area."

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