Work to Rule

[wobbly]

Is anyone else close to initiating the techies legendary "Work to Rule" policy?

We are currently 'Robbing (Old School)" 60-70% of our spares on the new Herc fleet and I was wondering if the rest of our aircraft are having the same sort of logistics problems.

After having our manpower drawn down to a showstring we are now having to rob our spares from other aircraft and equipment just to make ends meet. This doubles our workload as we now have to remove the spare from these bits of kit just to cover for the pooly funded supply system.

I am in no way having a pop at the stackers but the way its being funded. I know you lads and lasses are miffed at this too.

 

[Sospan]

Are you still using CRILS on the J's ? or has that been kicked in to touch ?

 

[MrMasher]

Is anyone else close to initiating the techies legendary "Work to Rule" policy?

We are currently 'Robbing (Old School)" 60-70% of our spares on the new Herc fleet and I was wondering if the rest of our aircraft are having the same sort of logistics problems.

After having our manpower drawn down to a showstring we are now having to rob our spares from other aircraft and equipment just to make ends meet. This doubles our workload as we now have to remove the spare from these bits of kit just to cover for the pooly funded supply system.

I am in no way having a pop at the stackers but the way its being funded. I know you lads and lasses are miffed at this too.

And thats what alot of people dont realise. In our place the robs are quite often bits of fairy kit which mostly need functionals which last for hours and involve having hyds on. Once you've sorted the 1st problem you quite often get a piece of kit in to replace the robbed item which isnt always fully 'S' so you end up robbing again, round and round we go!!

Its unbelievable how much work we create for ourselves. There is definetely a distinct lack of spares and it appears that there is also a distinct lack of interest...............

 

[Past Engineering]

Wobbly I have said on other threads that this is not new, we had to bring in the next Tornado aircraft due a minor first one day, then two etc up to a week in advance to rob it blind to get the one going out put back together. This was in 82 when we started on the first minors on the new wonder jet, very shortly after this we had to start to the remove wheels and fit ground use ones as there was not enough serviceable wheel nuts to keep the wheel and tyre bays going.

The trouble is everyone allways blames the suppliers, but it has nothing to do with them it is the usual culprits at the top/procurement branch/bean counters who have no idea that to run a fleet you need to buy spares, most actually have no idea what robbing or Cannabalised to Service means or what Sqn/Station christmas trees are, and lower down the officer corp (and some SNCOs) do not comprehend the increased work load that robs entail and the risk the donor part going U/S once it has been disturbed.

I must admit to being surprised when I was down at Marshalls and the extent of the Hercules fleet problems when I was told that you have to send a load of guys there to remove engines and other bits to fit to the aircraft that has just been painted so you can get it back to parent unit, this is taking robbing to a new level.

 

[Little Tronk]

The fact that there seems to be no spares is compounded by the fact that we rob. The D state demand in against an aircraft gets satisfied by the rob - hey no problem with spares! according to the computer anyway.

There is now not enough fat in the system to allow an aircraft to AOG and wait for the demand to be satisfied. Could the 'Pull principle' introduced through LEAN be making the problem even worse!?!

 

[Ex-Bay]

Wobbly I have said on other threads that this is not new, we had to bring in the next Tornado aircraft due a minor first one day, then two etc up to a week in advance to rob it blind to get the one going out put back together.

.

"It's always a "stores" problem". Well, as you rightly say, it actually ain't.
I suspect it has as much to do with HOW the system works (?) and whether Cell A (responsible for Part Q, part of Assembly W) actually talks to Cell B (responsible for Assembly W) at wherever stores procurement is done these days. Each Cell seems to have a separate quota of frustrations and anomalies, so talking to another cell about getting a new part from wherever is never going to be an 'easy' until some tw@t in the upper stratosphere of the Big House realises that the political *****s have really got it wrong and we really cannot do it right with what little they've left us.


DT_Xtremez_27:



"Give us the Tools & we will do the job". Churchill

 

[ipreferthegoodolddays]

The fact that there seems to be no spares is compounded by the fact that we rob. The D state demand in against an aircraft gets satisfied by the rob - hey no problem with spares! according to the computer anyway.

There is now not enough fat in the system to allow an aircraft to AOG and wait for the demand to be satisfied. Could the 'Pull principle' introduced through LEAN be making the problem even worse!?!

At our Stn once a rob is put on the Supply Rob Reg the D state is still outstanding we just change the demand to the robbed A/C tail. That is unless it is long term dead so gets downgraded to Pty 09 until nearer the time of roll out when the demand is again upgraded.
So not all Robs clear a D state demand... We just juggle them around...

 

[Little Tronk]

At our Stn once a rob is put on the Supply Rob Reg the D state is still outstanding we just change the demand to the robbed A/C tail. That is unless it is long term dead so gets downgraded to Pty 09 until nearer the time of roll out when the demand is again upgraded.
So not all Robs clear a D state demand... We just juggle them around...

Exactly my point! By juggling them around the true situatuion is hidden when looking at stats; the spares are found by robbing and not through the supply system!!

 

[monobrow]

Could the 'Pull principle' introduced through LEAN be making the problem even worse!?!

Having been away from the sharp end for a while, care to explain this "pull principle"?

 

[Little Tronk]

Having been away from the sharp end for a while, care to explain this "pull principle"?

A 'repair facility' will only supply an item when there is a requirment for one, not holding a stock of them to reduce 'waste' - LEAN term, not mine!!!

 

[Tashy_Man]

A 'repair facility' will only supply an item when there is a requirment for one, not holding a stock of them to reduce 'waste' - LEAN term, not mine!!!

In other words "remove item from "hidden" cupboard in the bay" oh look we have one serviceable.....we used to do it years ago...just in case we got called out over the weekend but so other station couldn't take all our stock.

Crack on..............DT_Xtremez_09:

 

[ipreferthegoodolddays]

Exactly my point! By juggling them around the true situatuion is hidden when looking at stats; the spares are found by robbing and not through the supply system!!

Lil tronk.
My point was not that the D state is satisfied but that mostly the d state is outstanding(albeit is for adifferent jet than org required for) this give IPT/strike etc visability thatthere is a problem with that certain asset in the spares pool. Robbing does not mean that people up stairs think things are dandy.. I am not standing up for the big nobs saying this. Just stating that at our Stn at least we do make the big fellas aware that even though a AOG emand has been satisfied in the mean time, the robbed A/C still needs a spare.
"

 

[Past Engineering]

The cannabalisation process was invented due to moratoriums on spares and lack of procurement and long lead times to procure spares that were never purchased when an aircraft first started in service.

If you are spending money on a new aircraft fleet and you are told that within the first three years (usual lead time for deciding need/sourcing/ordering/paying/recieving spares) you will only need three of item x, none of item y etc, then that is all they will purchase for day one of the ISD. So when you fly more hours than originally intended, change the flight profile from design, you suddenly need more spares, so you go D state, but it wont help you if you have allready used the 3 item x's or it is item y that has broken, the lead time is still 3 years. So the solution was sought and someone came up with the bright idea of:

Aircraft A is dead waiting for item x, aircraft B is dead waiting for item y, aircraft B is a higher mod state than aircraft A so why don't we remove item x from aircraft A and fit to aircraft B, voila one serviceable aircraft and one future source of spares from aircraft A for the Sqn. Taken one step further we have got to the situation where you place D states and the supply system tries to source the item, cannot, and it now gives you a rob as the only solution and eng ops just continue the problem by signing the rob of without thought 'for operational reasons'.

 

[Pan Warrior]

Robbing

Robbing

I think this problem is Airforce wide, cannibalisation (rob) is the only way to produce serviceable frames, the managers are terrified of not hitting the targets, so rob peter to service Paul, and hope nothing major goes wrong in your tour. We just pick the least serviceable jet and cannibalise it to death. then half the manpower have to fix twice the snags. its management logic I for one don't understand it.

Most managers cant see problems just the next rung on the promotion ladder..

note: for cant see read totally oblivious to.DT_Xtremez_32:

 

[MingMong]

I'm not sure that Wobbly meant this thread to be a discussion about the supply system or the pro's and con's of robbing items, but more for an opinion on 'working to rule'.

As the powers that be put more and more pressure on us to achieve much more with much less, finally something has to give. When you work on a section that has been told one week that you are officially quite heavily undermanned, to be told a couple of weeks later that you OOA commitments are to increase, it make you wonder if anybody actually does have their finger on the pulse.

Working to rule in my opinion is only a viable option if it is done accross the board, but unfortunately in this day and age there is always going to be some brown-nosed, promotion chasing git who will use it as an excuse to try to make themselves look good at the expense of those who are trying to prove that the system is at breaking point.

 

[Pan Warrior]

Drinking

Drinking

Is anyone else close to initiating the techies legendary "Work to Rule" policy?

We are currently 'Robbing (Old School)" 60-70% of our spares on the new Herc fleet and I was wondering if the rest of our aircraft are having the same sort of logistics problems.

After having our manpower drawn down to a showstring we are now having to rob our spares from other aircraft and equipment just to make ends meet. This doubles our workload as we now have to remove the spare from these bits of kit just to cover for the pooly funded supply system.

I am in no way having a pop at the stackers but the way its being funded. I know you lads and lasses are miffed at this too.

Ming mong are you reading the same post as us...???

 

[MingMong]

The only question in the thread PW is the very first line, a question that nobody has bothered to answer, so yes, I have read Wobbly's post! DT_Xtremez_28:


Obviously, without being to read Wobbly's mind, i'm not 100% sure what he was getting at, he does mince his words!

 

[Past Engineering]

Working to rule only works if you are prepared to work 24/7, it has been done before Vulcan OCU 71, 203 Sqd Nimrods in 75/76 and we where the only ones that lost out it changed nothing.

It would do nothing to ease the spares problems unless you were to disobey orders, and just to spell it out: You work to rule by removing U/S item, return U/S item all bundled up correctly, place demand, get told that there is no spare available so get on with other work until spare arrives, that would be working to rule, but now we get SNCO/JENGO/SENGO say's blogg's go rob that item from that other aircraft "but that is counter productive so I am going to wait for the replacement spare", no says boss you will go and do it now, two options disobey (work to rule) or do it.

 

[gemarriott]

Back to working to rule.

I remember we did a one day work to rule on 228 OCU phantoms sometime in the early 70s, can't remember what the particular gripe was but we only managed to launch one sortie with our 20+ airframes. Things improved after that though.

 

[MingMong]

Working to rule only works if you are prepared to work 24/7, it has been done before Vulcan OCU 71, 203 Sqd Nimrods in 75/76 and we where the only ones that lost out it changed nothing.

It would do nothing to ease the spares problems unless you were to disobey orders, and just to spell it out: You work to rule by removing U/S item, return U/S item all bundled up correctly, place demand, get told that there is no spare available so get on with other work until spare arrives, that would be working to rule, but now we get SNCO/JENGO/SENGO say's blogg's go rob that item from that other aircraft "but that is counter productive so I am going to wait for the replacement spare", no says boss you will go and do it now, two options disobey (work to rule) or do it.

It wouldn't just be about the way we utilise the supply system, but the whole way that we go about our day to day business.