ANNISTON ARMY DEPOT -- Safety, workload, term and temp extensions and term conversions were among the topics of Col. Martine Kidd's last town hall meeting at Anniston Army Depot.
Additionally, Kidd provided a retrospective look at the last two years in review. This included numerous distinguished visitors, internal reorganizations, receipt of the Army Award for Maintenance Excellence and the depot's 75th Anniversary Celebration.
"Let me tell you how grateful I am to have been able to serve two years with you," said Kidd. "This has been the most rewarding and incredible experience of my career."
SAFETY
Currently, ANAD has 27 fewer injuries than this time last year.
There have been 94 recordable injuries reported to-date in fiscal year 2017 and, at this time in FY16, there were 121.
Of the 94, 62 are not lost time incidents; 24 involve hearing and eight are lost time injuries.
The biggest concern continues to be overexertion injuries.
"We are all getting older. I have aches and pains this morning and I'm sure you do too," said Kidd. "Make sure you are warming up for work. If you are out there doing something physical, you should be stretching."
Overexertion injuries account for 50 percent of injuries.
SHARP
Kidd reminded the workforce there is a zero tolerance for sexual harassment or assault, reminding everyone to respect their coworkers.
"You have to treat each other as you would someone in your own family," she said.
Three complaints have been made so far in fiscal year 2017. Two were not found to be SHARP related, but employees were disciplined for inappropriate behavior. One is under investigation.
WORKLOAD
Currently, ANAD plans to have 2.66 million direct labor hours in fiscal year 2017.
"We've had an enormous amount of added work in this fiscal year after the fiscal year started," said Kidd.
Some of the workload challenges faced by the depot this year are equipment failures, unplanned workload and the hiring freeze.
One area in need of employees is the Small Arms Repair Facility. Michael Burke, the depot's deputy to the commander, encouraged employees who are capable of performing those production processes to volunteer to work in small arms.
To mitigate equipment failure issues, the Directorate of Production has been moving personnel to different cost centers and to second shift. The use of overtime has also increased the amount of time employees have to work with available equipment.
The Directorate of Public Works is working an emergency support contract to assist in repairing equipment when it goes down.
DPW is also now part of the production review meetings, so they are aware of which equipment repairs and maintenance are priority.
In FY2017, ANAD has added 239,000 direct labor hours of unplanned workload, which is workload not planned or forecast in LMP.
This workload increase resulted in the need to hire additional artisans. Unfortunately, the hiring freeze earlier this year delayed hiring to fill those positions.
To mitigate this, DP employees have worked higher percentages of overtime to increase throughput.
The hiring freeze ended in May and ANAD is now planning to hire approximately 170 term employees.
TERM AND TEMP
Recent guidance from the Department of Defense has extended temporary and term employments.
Currently, term employees can be extended up to four years and temporary employees can be extended for two years. The new guidance gives the potential to extend term employees to six years and temporary to three.
Additionally, term employees who are hired to positions which designate they have the potential to become permanent have a path to be converted to permanent.
"If we make an announcement for a term position and, in the announcement, it says that position can be converted to permanent, after two years, we have the ability to convert the term employee to permanent," said Burke.
Burke addressed those currently serving in term positions by saying the depot has asked if they can be grandfathered into this new policy. No determination has been made at this time, but, once a decision is made, it will be shared with the workforce.
QUALITY
ANAD's ultimate goal is always to provide customers with a defect-free product.
To assist with this, there are processes in place to track defects and correct them. Soon, this tracking process will move out of the EMIDAS system and be incorporated into the Complex Assembly Manufacturing Solution, better known as CAMS.
Tracking of defects and quality issues enables ANAD's workforce to isolate trends in quality defects and correct problems at the source.
This can significantly lower the cost of rework in all shops, thus saving the customer money and allowing more workload through the shops.
The migration of defect tracking to CAMS is expected at the end of September.
"If you get parts in on your line and they don't look right, get Quality involved. If you don't think a piece of equipment is ready, that it's defective, get someone to check," said Kidd.
LMP
Several topics related to the Logistics Modernization Program were discussed during the town hall, including an upcoming blackout, issues with tablets and the introduction of the Industrial Complex Integrated Information Tracker, also known as iCIIT.
An LMP blackout is currently scheduled from Thursday, Aug. 10, at 8 p.m. to Monday, Aug. 14, at 6 a.m. This blackout will not affect production.
Change requests are in place to upgrade the tablets to function better and more functional. Some of the improvements being considered for implementation have come from ANAD and will be incorporated throughout the organic industrial base.
Kidd asked employees to continue to learn and work in LMP to ensure ANAD continues to improve its performance.
"They are working on making LMP more functional for us," said Kidd. "When they get those things corrected, I ask you to give it another shot."
ANAD's newest tool for prioritizing workload is now deployed in four buildings in the industrial area.
"This tool, born and bred right here, will be logged into by the entire organic industrial base," said Kidd.
Through iCIIT, employees are able to view which items should be processed next and tracks each shop's performance.
Data from LMP will be incorporated into the system in August.
NEXT COMMANDER
ANAD's Change of Command Ceremony is scheduled for July 27 at 11:30 a.m. at Bldg. 500. During this ceremony, Kidd will relinquish command to Col. Joel Warhurst, who is currently assigned as the Army Chief of Staff's J4/G4, Chief of Logistics at NATO Rapid Deployable Corps.
"He comes with a tremendous background," said Kidd, adding she has known Warhurst for 15 years. "Anniston Army Depot was his first choice, as it was mine."
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