MIDDLETOWN, Iowa -- Newly hired production managers of Joint Munitions Command headquarters toured the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant early March to gain a better understanding of its capabilities, ammunition production process, and gain insight on how their efforts as a production manager supports the warfighter.
These visits enable new production managers to see the actual phases of Load, Assemble, Pack or LAP, quality check points, and how the overall production process work at an ammunition plant.
"As the commander of Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, we are always pleased to have visitors tour our operations whether they are from JMC headquarters, other major commands, private industry or chamber of commerce's. This gives us the opportunity to display our capabilities and world class products that we provide to our joint warfighter supporting our country", said Lt. Col. Tommie Hewitt, IAAAP Commander.
Julie Solinski, IAAAP chief installation management division, briefed the visitors with an overall command brief of the plant highlighting the plant's capabilities, management structure, and demolition facilities. Immediately after the briefing, visitors gathered in the lobby for a group photo.
Iowa Army Ammunition Plant government and contractor personnel gave JMC visitors a thorough tour of 155 mm artillery production, 120 mm tank ammunition production and special projects and warheads production.
The visitors were guided through the plant's lines of ammunition and artillery production from start to finish.
"I used the opportunity to see how my role, as a production manager, fit into the ammunition production process. The tour allowed me to gain a better overall understanding of how the LAP process operates at a plant. It is one thing to hear people talk about the LAP process, but I think it is more important to see it, in order to understand how it fully works," said Tess Meenan, who is a production manager for mortars.
According to Jana Meyer, Iowa installation advocate says the tour provided the opportunity to newer employees to visit a production facility. Their position requires that they manage production schedules of both components of delivery and LAP among other things. The visit to Iowa allowed them to view the process they remotely manage here from headquarters JMC.
The new JMC production managers handle the logistics of small caliber, mortars, 25 mm and 30 mm ammunition just to name a few. They were able to partake in a visual perspective of IAAAP in addition to learning the history of IAAAP workers and community.
"All of the tour guides were very knowledgeable and were more than willing to stop and answer questions. Even when we were just driving from one facility to another there was always conversation pertaining to the history of IAAAP, along with the history of the workers and the community," said Martin Carlin, a medium caliber production manager.
During the tour, visitors were afforded the opportunity to view IAAAP chamber gage and the 40 pound Cratering Charge production. Few visitors have been allowed to view the chamber gage due to government regulations.
"My favorite part of the tour was seeing the chemicals being poured into the container; I always wondered how that step took place," said Thaunica Johnson, production manager.
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