Surprise Award Recognizes Years Of Aviation Service

By Ms. Kari Hawkins (AMCOM)December 8, 2015

ORDER OF ST. MICHAEL
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- J.D. Webster hadn't planned on getting an award when he signed up to be the presenter during Ed Iannone's award ceremony.

But, other people's plans have a way of surprising us.

"I went there to honor Ed," Webster said of the awards ceremony. "I was the emcee and Ed got two awards. But, after that, we all started to leave and Mr. (Bill) Marriott (the Aviation and Missile Command's deputy commander) said, 'Not so fast.' In the spirit of efficiency, they combined two award presentations into one event."

Webster soon became the recipient of an Order of Saint Michael, Bronze Award, from the Army Aviation Association of America, and a Superior Civilian Service Award from AMCOM.

"It was overwhelming," Webster said.

Webster, a retired lieutenant colonel, began his aviation career as an enlisted Soldier in 1983. He was selected for the Army's "Green to Gold" program and trained as a Cobra helicopter pilot. In 1988, he shifted to the Apache, and has led units both of Apache and Kiowa helicopter pilots.

"Whatever service you are in, it doesn't matter the assignment. You work hard because that's what you're supposed to do," Webster said.

He retired in 2006 and, in 2010, became AMCOM's chief of Operations and Synchronization for Condition Based Maintenance.

"This award is not about me," Webster said of the Bronze Award. "It has to do with the people I worked with on Condition Based Maintenance. It's a reflection of the work of lots of committed employees."

Webster first heard the term "CBM" during an information briefing by Chris Smith, former director of AMCOM's CBM office, during the Cribbins Aviation Equipment Symposium in 2009.

"Back then, CBM was still a new concept, at least to the Army," Webster recalled.

The advent of CBM came about in the commercial airline industry. And, it was so effective, that the Army took notice.

"The whole airline industry was highly risky because of the technical environment. Profit margins were very slim. When operating costs went up, those margins would be even slimmer," Webster said.

"Condition Based Maintenance helped to control those costs by monitoring aircraft and performing maintenance only when it was needed. That's very similar to Army aviation because the availability of aircraft has to meet the demand for our aircraft, and that is challenging because we also have to control operating and support costs."

Before CBM, engineers would design and test a part, and then look at all the ways the part could fail. Based on what they learned about a part's failures, engineers would derive when inspections and maintenance should be conducted, he said. That detailed analysis during design and testing served as the basis of a time-based maintenance strategy for the part. The strategy allowed for preventative maintenance; maintenance conducted before -- and in anticipation of -- a calculated, yet highly unlikely failure.

CBM does not follow a time-based maintenance strategy.

"CBM is maintenance based on evidence of need," Webster said. "The condition of the part tells you when its time to do maintenance, not a schedule or a book. If you can tell when the part needs maintenance, then you can do true maintenance, extend the failure curve, and keep the part in operation for a longer period of time."

So, when he was asked to join AMCOM's CBM team and lead efforts to field CBM's digital source collectors across the Army's fleet, Webster was all in. Digital source collectors take CBM to another level by providing performance data for internal parts that can be analyzed to determine when parts need to be repaired or replaced.

In 2010, only 1,485 helicopters -- or 39 percent -- were equipped with digital source collectors. During the five-year project, Webster's team increased that number to more than 3,260 helicopters or 89 percent of the Army's fleet. They equipped 1,795 helicopters and 3,000 missile systems with the digital source collectors.

"I really liked the mission," he said. "I didn't take the job for the money or the glory or the profit sharing. Myself and the entire team came together for the mission. We believed in this mission from the beginning. It's the only way the Army is going to achieve cost-wise readiness for aviation."

The digital source collectors were installed through a rapid fielding initiative that has saved numerous helicopter engines, avoided at least four potential critical mishaps, increased aircraft availability, decreased non-mission capable maintenance and resulted in a $20.8 million per year cost avoidance in maintenance test flights that were no longer necessary. Overall, the projected cost-benefit of CBM is estimated at $2.1 billion in cost avoidance over a 20-year period. The application of CBM would be realized in fewer parts procurements and repairs, less time spent doing maintenance, fewer maintenance tasks, and less time dedicated to maintenance test flights.

Besides the digital source collectors, Webster led a team of employees who pushed for improved Condition Based Maintenance by developing and implementing a CBM-plus strategy for the Aviation Branch, creating a budget and securing funding for long-term CBM-plus funding, developing the CBM-plus effort for the Hellfire missile systems and formalizing business processes for a long-term CBM-plus program.

"CBM-plus not only gives you the ability to see a problem before it happens and tells you when the problem is likely to occur, it can also isolate down to the root cause of problems the we previously didn't know," Webster said.

"We can't design a perfect part that never breaks or that never needs to be replaced. But we can find that sweet spot of getting full optimization of that part before it has to be repaired or replaced."

Since the award presentation, Webster has gone on to another assignment. He is now chief of the Programs and Analysis Division for Operations, Plans and Analysis at the AMCOM Logistics Center.

But, no matter the assignment, he said AMCOM and its Logistics Center succeeds because of dedicated employees.

"We have employees who are passionate about their job," he said. "What makes employees and good organizations go from good to great is when they are constantly seeking ways to improve as employees, as a team and as an organization. That's what we have here at AMCOM."