HVM Practices Start at Robins AFB

With the July 31 arrival of a C-130 Hercules at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, mechanics marked the beginning of a new era in how maintenance is performed. The Air Mobility Command (AMC) C-130 is the first validation aircraft to utilize High Velocity Maintenance (HVM) techniques, which aim to reduce downtime by using a new method of programmed depot maintenance (PDM). “It’s the largest philosophical and cultural change in how we do scheduled maintenance in the last 25 to 30 years,” says Jerry Mobley, HVM team lead. Essentially, instead of coming in for PDM every six years — at a total average of 164 days in the shop — the aircraft will undergo PDM every 18 months. The change in schedule will lead to significantly less downtime overall, estimated to be half or less over the six-year period, which will help keep the aircraft in service and meet Air Force demands.
For more detailed explanations of HVM practices, see December 2008’s Reinventing USAF Depot Maintenance and April 2009’s Oklahoma City ALC: Military MRO in Transition, both by Contributing Editor Charlotte Adams.