Idea brings $10,000 for McConnell civilian

Published Aug. 27, 2012
By Senior Airman Laura L. Valentine
22nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs

MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. -- A civilian member of the 22nd Operations Group was presented a check for $10,000 from the Air Force at the 22nd Air Refueling Wing staff meeting Aug. 27 at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan.

James Shores, 22nd OG short range scheduling chief, received the money as part of the Innovative Development through Employee Awareness program, which provides an incentive for members to submit ideas that streamline processes and increase productivity and efficiency in the workplace.

Shores identified a recalibration that will help eliminate fuel waste in air refueling training operations.

Traditionally, "token offload fuel" has been interpreted to represent 1,000 pounds of transfer fuel to a receiver from a tanker during a training mission. In legacy scheduling tools a whole number value in the offload field was required.

Shores recognized that the restriction for whole number values no longer exists in the current software and recommended changing the default fuel offload value to 100 pounds per mission. By reducing the token offload values from 1,000 to 100 pounds, the Air Mobility Command will save more than $472 thousand annually, said Master Sgt. Billy Nash, 22nd Force Support Squadron IDEA Program manager.

The cost savings is the savings in the cost to carry the penalty fuel, which is the extra fuel was carried each mission. In some training missions, the receiver doesn't require fuel, just the practice of connecting and disconnecting with the boom, said Shores.

Now that air refueling missions can be scheduled with a lighter fuel load, it will be a re-education process for AMC schedulers.

It's educating them on what to use, how to do it and be able to meet the receiver's requests, which will save the Air Force some money in the process, said Shore.

It was by accident that the IDEA process started in March 2011.

We were talking about fuel conservation for our KC-135 Stratotankers. It was figured for the maintenance side of the house, instead of calculating to the nearest 5,000 pounds of fuel for refueling a plane out on the ramp, a plane could be refueled to the nearest 1,000 pounds. With that reduction of 4,000 pounds of fuel, we further identified a way to save more money by narrowing the mission load from 1,000 to 100 pounds, said Shore.

Shores worked with several individuals and offices on base, including current operations, fuel efficiency, and manpower, to research and accomplish the changes. AMC was also involved with determining the correct calculations.

"I never thought about it until I got the calculator out," said Shore. "It was after I thought about how many missions we do here and all the other [AMC] bases, as well as Guard and Reserves, and those numbers add up. What I thought was a trivial amount here was really a lot more."

As the largest tanker wing, McConnell will save thousands of dollars annually using the new fueling calibrations.

"A lot of times you take things for granted in the way you do business," he said, "then you start looking at other ways to save a few dollars."

For more information or to submit a proposal, contact the installation IDEA Program office.