Mobility Airmen around globe team up with cargo loading efficiency

Published March 7, 2012
By Master Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
Air Mobility Command Public Affairs

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- More than 18 years ago when Master Sgt. Mitch Pykosz first became an air transportation Airman, the biggest thing in his work life may have been to do his to best learn how to build a cargo pallet for an aircraft.

Now, as a team leader on Air Mobility Command's cargo precision loading program, he's not only mastered the art of building pallets, he's working with a "great team" of mobility Airmen across the globe to make cargo loading more effective and efficient.

Originally started in July 2010 as the next generation cargo capability initiative, the project morphed into "cargo precision loading" as it grew through the participation of a myriad of aerial ports, people and efforts throughout Air Mobility Command, said Pykosz, precision loading program manager for AMC's Directorate of Logistics, Air Transportation Cargo Policy team.

According to an AMC talking paper on the initiative, the precision loading program "standardizes air cargo build up from depot suppliers and AMC aerial ports to maximize volume and weight utilization."

The program increases operational effectiveness and reduces fuel cost while meeting the component commander end customers' "Time Definite Delivery," or TDD, requirements. The program's principles lead to more efficiently-built cargo pallets, resulting in less pallets by-count, and more efficiently utilized aircraft, resulting in less aircraft sortie requirements.

"The bottom line," Pykosz said, "is it saves AMC and the Air Force money."

The first four aerial port units to test out the new precision loading initiative were at Dover AFB, Del., Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., Travis AFB, Calif., and the AMC aerial port squadron in Norfolk, Va. In October 2011, AMC implemented a new precision loading policy at all AMC aerial ports throughout the world.

The talking paper also states more about the growth of the initiative. "At the same time as pallet building principles were being re-engineered and refocused, AMC personnel were partnering with U.S. Transportation Command and Defense Logistics Agency personnel to seek utilization improvements elsewhere."

On the implementation of the new policy, AMC instructed people at the cargo-processing and load planning levels to "strive for specific pallet and aircraft utilization goals, in accordance with mission requirements."

Pykosz has been with the growth of the initiative from nearly the beginning.

"The (precision loading) program started several months before I started working with the team members," Pykosz said. "When I started, I was charged with giving the program an expansion plan. As a team we've built that plan and expanded it to the rest of Air Mobility Command's aerial ports and en route air mobility squadrons. It's a great program that is working very well with improving efficiency."

One area efficiency comes into play is utilizing as much pallet space as possible on both contract and military airlift missions -- which in turn requires less missions to complete, Pykosz said. The effort includes building pallets to their maximum weight or volume goals, based on specific aircraft requirements.

"Compared to when I was a new aerial porter in the Air Force more than 18 years ago, we are doing more work now that improves operations every day," Pykosz said. "We did it then too, but we now have better technology and more tools available to us to do things better. We also have new aerial porters providing ideas and feedback that only helps improve this effort even more."

And the initiative is working well. Through February, the precision loading has enabled a 9 percent mission utilization increase which led to an avoidance of 195 air missions. Success like this also leads to recognition. In 2011, the Command Air Transportation and Traffic Cargo Managers Team was recognized as one of five teams to win the Air Force Chief of Staff Team Excellence Award.

The award was presented during the Air Force Association's 2011 Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition in National Harbor, Md. Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force chief of staff, presented the award. In an Air Force report by Master Sgt. Amaani Lyle it states "the integrated team of air cargo movement functional managers, data analysts, and transformation advisors targeted key (Department of Defense) distribution processes to establish new rules of engagement, aircraft and pallet build standards, end-to-end material flow options and control metrics.

"Their efforts balanced the efficient and effective movement of air cargo from major supply depots through AMC's global channel airlift operations system to all combatant commanders and global customers," the report states. "This increased system-wide aircraft utilization by 10 percent."

The precision loading initiative will continue to grow as opportunities become available.

"We are going to AMC aerial ports throughout the world in 2012 to see and learn new things about this process," Pykosz said. "We also successfully used our our pallet build-up principles during the 2011 AMC Rodeo competition. We're on the right track and it's going to continue to get better."