What a sheltered life I’ve led. I only discovered the existence of PPRuNe a month or so ago and have been reading the various forums with interest and, in most cases, have found them humorous, instructive and enlightening. There does seem to be though, an awful lot of ill-informed conjecture on this particular thread and, having some knowledge on the why’s and wherefores of Lyneham’s Eng Wing reorganization, I may be able to throw a glimmer of light on the subject.
It all started with a techy down at MPA fitting a spinner incorrectly. Having done the job himself, he persuaded a junior to undersign him (wrong, I know, but I don’t know the pressures they were under at the time – unwilling to speculate). Later, engine started, prop turned, spinner thrown off dinking wing leading edge in the process. At the subsequent inquiry, less importance seemed to be placed on the fact that he had done the job incorrectly, what everyone latched onto was his statement that “the process of undersigning is common at Lyneham, it’s always been done like that” (the fact that the individual concerned was not stationed at Lyneham seemed to have been irrelevant!). This very public airing of Lyneham’s shortcomings prompted OC Eng to circulate a questionnaire to all members of Eng Wg asking for their comments and suggestions on a whole raft of subjects including perceived problems with engineering standards and practices, problems with tooling, problems with communication through the chain of command, etc. etc. The results were collated and a Working Group of Eng Wg management was formed, each being given one of these problem areas to sort out.
The end result was a series of VSA’s, RIE’s, End 2 End forums, and “lean” implementation up the ying yang, which would address the problems that the WORKFORCE had identified (see SPHL’s glossary of terms on page 8). In July 04, halfway through all this lot, came the news that as part of the SDR, the RAF would lose about 16% of its trained strength, almost 8000 personnel in real terms. The next bit is a little blurry round the edges, but someone stated (estimated?) that this reduction in personnel would account for almost 150 engineers from Lyneham; this was in addition to the 130 posts that were due to go under HIOS. This equated to a loss of about 60 personnel on 24/30 (Eng) Sqn and 90 on 47/70 (Eng) Sqn. You don’t need a calculator to come to the conclusion that, come the day of the revolution, the 2 Sqns which were barely viable with the manpower establishment they already had, could not absorb such a draconian cut in manpower and be able to perform their primary task.
So, coincident with the implementation of these various “initiatives” to improve the techy’s lot, a system had to be put in place that would be robust enough to be able to handle the loss of 150 or so engineers. This is what spawned the current Forward / Depth model that Lyneham are having such trouble with at the moment. The model wasn’t the idea of our lords and masters at High Wycombe, and neither was it that of OC Eng (who nevertheless signed up to it), the “initiative” came from within Eng Wg. Unfortunately, by the time that the SNCO’s were briefed on the new concept, it was written in stone and their opinions on the subject were never sought, their only task being to implement it. Even more unfortunately, the benefits of adopting this radical new system of operating was briefed to the PUS of S for Defence and the mandarins in Whitehall and also to a group of Officers in the US BEFORE the system was up and running. These actions, I would suggest, preclude a return to the old way of operating, as it would be political/career suicide. There was much scepticism (quite rightly) and well before the event, as far as I can gather, any questions posed by the guys at the coalface, were answered by the management in order to allay everyone’s fears.
Where it went wrong was on the day of its implementation. There was (and still is) confusion on how the model should operate. Who was supposed to be doing what? What is the chain of command? At what point do HLS hand the aircraft over to FLECS? Etc. etc. Ad nauseam. Luckily, the flying programme at that time of the year was quite light – the reason that the re-organization had been planned for that time – and it was perceived that any flaws in the system could be identified and rectified without too much grief. The problem was that each HLS shift had its own slant on how it should work and was consequently pulling in a different direction to the other 3. To the best of my knowledge, only one shift has tried to operate as the new system dictates and the others are doing what they can, however they can, to achieve the flying programme – see all the previous posts on professional pride - with the consequence that no-one can identify the points where it is all going pear-shaped as there are now several different ways in which people are trying to achieve the same end result.
Nightmare.
There are many posts on this thread from individuals venting their spleen at particular areas of the system that are failing, and I can wholeheartedly understand their concern as they are professional technicians who only want, at the end of the day, to do a good job, get the aircraft out on time every time and live a worry-free life. The fact that so many of these posts exist should be of great concern to those in positions of power (my spies tell me that there are individuals at 2 Gp who are very, very nervous about the way that things are shaping up at Lyneham). I am led to understand that finally, Lyneham engineering management has taken on board (to a degree) the fact that the system needs some serious manipulation in order for it to work and will therefore be having more VSA’s, RIE’s (here we go again) that will (hopefully) sort out all the problems, but this time, the SNCO’s are going to be the major players this time and fundamental in the planning of any further changes. To that end, I suggest that you all have a damn good think on how the system should operate and suggest that you post solutions from here on in and resist the temptation to present more instances of where the system is flawed. Why not send your ideas to the Station Change Team? Anonymously if need be, but if you want to be instrumental in tweaking the system, you have to make sure that your voice is heard, but be advised, a return to the old system will never be sanctioned.
Apologies for rambling on but hopefully this goes some way to filling the gaps in this thread and I hope that I have only presented the facts as opposed to my own emotive views on the subject.
My ideal:
1. All the flying Sqn’s have their own groundcrew. They would have to post people into Lyneham for that to work and that will certainly not happen.
2. Go back to 24/30 and 47/70 engineering. That will work fine until the manpower cuts start to bite and then Eng Wg would disappear up its own fundamental orifice.
3. Something radically different to what is currently in place.
Discuss.
Obe One