Many people within Air Force Materiel Command associate toolboxes with maintenance-oriented jobs. However, with the renewed emphasis on continuous improvement, more people are turning to their “Lean” toolbox.

This toolbox contains various Lean improvement tools that are part of Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century. AFSO21, as it is more commonly known, is an overarching strategy to improve how the Air Force accomplishes daily tasks. Its goal is to make processes more standardized, effective and efficient. 

The Vibration Monitoring and Analysis industry has tremendous applications given the developments in other mechanical and electro-mechanical industries that subsequently require better testing and condition monitoring systems. Hence, there is a need to develop more advanced vibration monitoring tools that are cost-effective and more efficient, adapting to the changes in these other industries, both generic and specific.

Company hopes its efficiency and expertise will help it attract its rivals as clients for its work

By Mark Skertic
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 25, 2006

TULSA—A little more than year ago, when Carmine Romano wanted to add workers or take them off a line at American Airlines’ aircraft maintenance base in Tulsa, he ordered it and it was done. As vice president of the base, those decisions were his alone.

But not anymore.

“I tried to run the business effectively, and he’d come in and chew my butt,” Romano said, pointing to union president Dennis Burchette sitting next to him.

Burchette’s response? “He’d make a business decision without taking into effect the people and things I was dealing with.”

It was the classic management-labor conflict at the world’s largest commercial carrier, played out with grievances, complaints and bad feelings simmering on both sides.

That has changed during the last year as management and labor have found a new reason to work together: American Airlines’ plan to turn its maintenance facilities into profit centers.

Read more at the Chicago Tribune

Multiple Enhancements Along with a New Material Management Module Extend Value of Configuration-Driven MRO for Organizations Maintaining High Value Capital Equipment

PLANO, Texas and LONDON – UGS Corp., a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced the latest release of Teamcenter for MRO, the set of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) capabilities within the UGS Teamcenter solution, the world’s most widely used PLM software portfolio. 

Datastick Software Upgrades for Both Its PDA and Desktop PC Software Programs Provide Overall Vibration Alerts, Spectrum Averaging, and Improved Low-Level, Low-Frequency Performance in Vibration Collection and Analysis

Datastick Systems, Inc., shipped the new version 1.5 of its Datastick Spectrum software for its PDA-based VSA-1212 Vibration Spectrum Analyzer for predictive, conditions-based maintenance, said Michael Scandling, Vice President of Marketing, at the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley today. The new version 1.5 of Datastick Reporting System(TM) for VSA software for machine histories and vibration analysis on desktop PCs was shipped simultaneously.

FirstEnergy hopes $22 million control center improves reliability

Associated Press
AKRON, Ohio - Behind barbed wire at a secret location, FirstEnergy Corp. hopes a $22 million control center improves electric reliability for customers of the utility that was at the heart of the 2003 blackout across much of the Midwest and East.

“This is what reliability is,” Robert Austin, director of transmission operations, said amid equipment allowing the utility to check monitors at 42,000 locations on high-voltage lines and big substations every five minutes.

“These dispatchers are looking at power flows, generation, the loading of our system and a contingency analysis to compare our information with other systems. The technologies are very robust.”

Read more

Houston, TX – June 27, 2006 – PAS today announced on-demand availability of its Integrity software to Engineering Companies via its “Engineered with Integrity” program.  The Integrity software automates control system documentation and detection of common configuration errors for distributed control systems, PLC’s and instrument databases.  Use of the Integrity software reduces engineering labor costs by 20-30% on a typical control configuration project, while increasing quality.

Bush in Vienna (Wall Street Journal 06/22/06)

The President told reporters that the US also was in the process of determining specific ways that it could help the Iraqi government improve the country’s electricity system, which has been crippled by failed American rebuilding project, corruption and insurgent sabotage.  Currently, the US military is working with the new Iraqi government to build new “rapid-repair” teams that will perform regular maintenance on the system and move faster to address malfunctions. 

EuroMaintenance Report
By Terrence O’Hanlon, CMRP

I am pleased to report that I have arrived in Basel Switzerland on Monday to attend the opening of the 18th EuroMaintenance Conference and the 3rd World Congress of Maintenance.

I would have checked in sooner however the hotel I am in has limited broadband connections and last night – everyone else in the Hotel were squeezing the connection for all it was worth. 

By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press Writer

JACKSON, N.J. - At 128 mph and a little more than 45 stories tall, the Kingda Ka roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure gives riders quite a thrill. That is, when it’s working.

As the amusement park this week unveiled another fast and furious roller coaster — a wooden one called El Toro — it also is trying to tackle a problem experts say is common with many high-performance roller coasters: reliability.

Read the rest of the story