VOL III, NO I § OCT-DEC 2017CRANE ARMY AMMUNITION ACTIVITY

RENOVATIONMANUFACTURING DEMILIT ARIZATIONLOGISTICS SURVEILLANCE

THE SAFETY ISSUE

CRANE Quarterly MAGAZINE

In This Issue:CRANE ARMY’S SAFETY PROGRAM

STATE OF REPAIR: RETURNING OLD BOMBS LIKE NEW TO THE FLEET

GUIDANCE FROM THE SECDEF

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Commander’s Comments

Col. Michael P. Garlington

Teammates,

It has been my distinct honor the past few months to go around and speak to senior leaders in the military, legislature and community about the great work happening at Crane Army Ammunition Activity. I can tell you that the response I get is fairly universal – they are extremely impressed not only by the critical mission CAAA plays in the defense of our nation, but also by the level of commitment our Army civilians show in completing their assigned missions. I only wish that I could learn how to bottle the Hoosier work ethic and ship it nationwide! The readiness of the Army and entire Department of Defense rests on your shoulders and you do not fail to deliver.

I have told many of you that when a new commander receives their orders to their command assignment, they either want it to be the worst outfit imaginable so the only direction is up, or you want it to be the best so you will already be on top. I am remarkably fortunate that I was allowed to command arguably the BEST ammo depot in the Organic Industrial Base! That means the challenge for me is to find ways to keep Crane Army on top; turning it over better than I received it. The three ways I want to strengthen what we do across the enterprise is through Safety, Quality and Efficiency. It means ensuring every member of our workforce goes home safely each day, that the ammunition we send to the warfighter works right every time and that we provide the best value to the taxpayer for what we do.

This issue of the Crane Quarterly focuses on safety and I hope that everyone takes the message to heart. We can have the best machines and process in the world, but without you, the workforce, we are useless. This issue is designed to get you thinking about being safe in all aspects of what you do. We are all safety officers and the welfare of every employee begins with you. Self-reporting a near miss is a critical way to ensure that the entire command is aware of

Safety, Quality & Efficiency

a problem and that we fix it BEFORE it is catastrophic. If you see something dangerous – speak up! It is everyone’s responsibility for a safe workplace.

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CRANE Quarterly Magazine

COMMAND STAFF

Col. Michael P. GarlingtonCommander

Norman ThomasDeputy to the Commander

Danny A. WileyChief of Staff

EDITORIAL STAFFThomas Peske Public and Congressional Affairs

Marshall Z. HowellPublic Affairs Officer

Capt. Amy CranePublic Affairs Officer

Hayley SmithPublic Affairs Intern

EDITORIAL OFFICE INFORMATION The Crane Quarterly is an authorized publication for members of Crane Army Ammunition Activity and the Department of Defense. Contents of the magazine are unofficial and are not necessarily the views of, or endorsed by, Crane Army Ammunition Activity, the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or any other U.S. Government agency.

The editorial content of the Crane Quarterly is the responsibility of the Public Affairs Office at CAAA.

Features 7 STATE OF REPAIR Returning Old Bombs Like New to the Fleet

8 SAFETY FIRST Crane Army’s Safety Program

10 SECDEF GUIDANCE How CAAA Supports the Three Lines of Effort

In Every Issue 2 COMMANDER’S COMMENTS Safety, Quality and Efficiency

4 RAPID FIRE CAAA News and Notes

5 RECON Photos from the Field

6 INTEL Rail Employees Conversion

ContentsMailbag

CAAA welcomes feedback from readers. Feedback can be submitted via email and must include sender’s name, phone number and valid email address. Send feedback emails to: usarmy.crane.jmc.mbx.caaa-cdr-site@mail.mil.

Postal address: CAAA Newsletter, ATTN: JMCN-PA, 300 Highway 361, Crane, Indiana 47522-5099.

Q. What color safety vest or hat is approved for CAAA personnel to wear out in the field?A: Official Depot Operations employees should wear the yellow and green high-visibility items. Transient personnel in those areas may wear either the yellow and green or orange high-visibility safety items.

Cover photo: A Crane Army employee utilizes welding equipment in

support of shipping container repair operations.

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Rapid Fire1

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3 Anti-Terrorism Exercise Report from MLAAP

Air Force Launcher Team at LEMC

Overheard

An Air Force launcher team assisted Letterkenny Munitions Center technicians with the final assembly of two modified launchers in preparation for an initial launcher evaluation by the USAF Seek Eagle Office October 23-26, 2017.

In support of a new requirement, LEMC performed a modification on older variants of the USAF’s LAU-128 missile launcher which required the fabrication of several non-available parts. The USAF launcher team worked alongside LEMC technicians inspecting the newly fabricated parts and assembling two modified launchers. The modified launchers still need to be approved for flight on the F-15 Strike Eagle platform.

The modification of older variants of the LAU-128 launcher enables the US Air National Guard to carry additional countermeasures (Chaff/Flare) on the F-15 Strike Eagle, which adds additional launcher capability and ensures munitions delivery readiness for the USAF.

Who: Milan Army Ammunition Plant (MLAAP)

What: Annual Anti-Terrorism (AT) Exercise Where: Milan, Tennessee

When: October 23-26, 2017

Why: Force Protection Readiness Training

Summary: MLAAP personnel completed numerous exercise scenarios to test and evaluate security and emergency response procedures and outside support agency readiness. The scenarios involved multiple local outside agencies working in coordination with plant personnel.

So What? Improves capability and readiness to address potential terrorist threats and emergency situations.

NEWS & NOTES

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Recon

Top:The facility formerly known as Rockeye is now called the Crane Flexible Manufacturing Complex, or CFMC.

Right:Crane Army, in partnership with Gradient Technology, chemically converts bulk explosive Yellow D to produce picric acid during the demilitarization process.

Left:An ammunition surveillance worker performs safe banding operations by using proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

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Intel

Train Spotting

Consider the following tips to help protect everyone around railroads.

Blue to Green: Navy Rail Employees Become Army CiviliansWhile Crane Army has carried on the legacy mission of providing munitions readiness to the entire DoD since 1977, Crane rail operators have remained Navy employees. Since most rail operations on Naval Support Activity Crane involve Crane Army, it made sense for the employees to now fall in as Army civilians. While there can be minor differences in the way Army and Navy regulate rail on a military installation, it is expected that the employees will continue to do their jobs largely as they always have. The ability of Crane to get ammunition to the Warfighter around the world is key to its value to the Organic Industrial Base.

Forty years after the U.S. Army took over the conventional munitions mission at the Crane Navy base, 13 Navy rail employees took the civilian oath as new Crane Army Ammunition Activity employees.

• YOU are responsible for making sure trains are not approaching before crossing the tracks. Always look both ways and listen for train whistles before crossing railroad tracks. • Do not rely on gates or flashers to alert you to an oncoming train. None of the rail crossings at Crane have gates, and only some have flashers.• NEVER try to race a train across a railroad crossing. • NEVER stop a car on railroad tracks.• Be extra cautious when driving or walking near rail workers. The workers are focused on the tracks or the train load, not on you.• Hornets, wasps, and bees are known to nest under rail tracks and equipment, especially in the fall. When working near or passing by railroad tracks, look out for any nests and listen for telltale buzzing.• Overgrown vegetation on and around railroad tracks are dangerous and can pose a fire hazard, obscure visibility, trip pedestrians and workers, conceal potentially hazardous snakes and insects, and deteriorate the tracks. Be alert to any of these conditions when near railroad tracks.• Contractors should call the Railroad Dispatcher any time they are working on or near a railroad.

It is everyone’s responsibility to maintain a safe working environment. To report hazardous railroad conditions or unsafe behavior, contact the Railroad Dispatcher at 482-1613. Please note that this number may soon change due to the rail transfer from Navy to Army.

Railroads can pose serious safety risks to rail workers, pedestrians, and motorists. Take precautions to keep yourself, your friends, and your coworkers safe. With 94 miles of active rail at Crane, it is easy to become complacent. NEVER assume railroad crossings are safe. Trains can pass at any time. Even one instance of poor judgment could result in serious injury, damage, or even death.

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Initially, Crane Army only focused on small scale bomb renovation and did not have a facility to accommodate the larger renovation process. It proposed partnering with NAVAIR to invest in a full scale bomb renovation line. Crane Army worked directly with NAVAIR to develop a design and method that would accommodate large scale bomb renovation, match investment funds and build a full-scale bomb renovation laboratory at Crane.

STATE OF REPAIR:Returning Old Bombs Like New to the Fleet

A decades-old partnership between the Army and Navy allows for old bombs to be renovated and returned to service at a fraction of the cost of producing new munitions.

More than 25 years ago, a need emerged to take unserviceable Navy bombs, refurbish them and return them to the warfighter in like-new condition. A partnership between Crane Army Ammunition Activity and U.S. Naval Air Systems Command formed to keep up with supply and demand, expedite the renovation process and save the taxpayer money.

“The current relationship we have started because Crane provided the ability to economically refurbish our thermally coated bombs as well as our non-thermally coated bombs which no other site could provide at the time,” John Hyatt, NAVAIR Assistant Program Manager for Logistics said.

“It paid for itself in less than two years and it worked out really well,” Dave Peel, CAAA project engineer for the Bomb Renovation Lab, said. “We are now the premier fleet return site. Any NAVAIR bomb that is considered unusable is sent straight to Crane to be renovated.”

When bombs come to Crane, they are inspected and tested to determine whether or not they can be repaired. The most common defect making a bomb unusable is when the coating becomes damaged. Most are considered repairable and are placed on a conveyer system to begin the renovating process of thermal coating removal, recoating, curing and palletization.

According to Peel, the explosive limits allowed in specific areas is a unique capability allowing Crane Army to move a lot of product quickly and efficiently to get bombs back into the hands of the warfighter.

This partnership remains beneficial for both parties and Crane Army continues to directly supply and support the warfighter by renovating bombs and shipping them worldwide.

“For us, we benefit because Crane Army provides a very economical service restoring our unserviceable bombs to serviceable condition,” Hyatt said. “Working with the NAVAIR model, I’d say there’s obviously going to be a future as long as we have bombs, we’re going to need to renovate them.”

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SAFETY FIRST: CRANE ARMY’S SAFETY PROGRAM

Crane Army’s safety program exists to protect people. No resource is more valuable to Crane Army’s mission than the people who accomplish this mission every day. Crane Army’s Safety Office exists to ensure that safety is engrained into every part of Crane Army’s culture. The overarching safety goal of this culture is to ensure all employees are utilizing the optimum level of safety methods to achieve maximum mission capability with a minimum amount of upsets and injuries.

In order to do this Crane Army’s Safety Office has set five strategic goals for FY18:

1. Improve the safety programs and initiatives in order to reduce accident rates.

2. Improve workplace safety and health through compliance assistance and enforcement of occupational safety and health regulations.

3. Promote a safety and health culture.

4. Ensure a proactive and systematic management of risk.

5. Manage the Army safety and occupational health program efficiently and effectively.

Methods for accomplishing this goal include SAFESTART training, maintaining the outstanding system of near miss reporting and subsequent investigations, conducting the monthly Commander’s Safety and Occupational Health Advisory Committee, implementing a DA-compliant Rail Safety Program and implementing a JMC-compliant LME/Alternative COTS Program.

Methods for accomplishing this goal include pursuing ISO 450001 certification, seeking assistance from JMC safety as needed, addressing machine guarding needs, improving the confined space safety program and improving the hearing conservation safety program.

Methods for accomplishing this goal include ensuring 100 percent of CP-12 professionals have completed Ammo 45, 63, 78 and 107 training, 100 percent of safety and occupational health specialists have CP-12 Level One certificates and creating a DPMAP standard element for safety that can be applied to all Crane Army personnel.

Methods for accomplishing this goal include ensuring 100 percent of online risk management training and online manager/supervisor/employee safety course training is completed across CAAA.

Methods for accomplishing this goal include appropriately manning and budgeting for safety programs, campaigns and equipment and using the weekly safety topic method to communicate safety, industrial hygiene and environmental awareness information.

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Near Misses

Crane Army employees are essential to CAAA’s safety program. Identifying and reporting near misses are key parts of employee participation. Reporting near misses is essential to protecting everyone here at Crane. While an incident may not injure anyone the first time, someone may not be so fortunate the next. Employee vigilance helps keep everybody safe. Your coworkers are relying on you.

Near misses occur whenever there is an unexpected event that could have harmed someone or damaged equipment or property but did not.

Ignoring a near miss means ignoring an opportunity to make your workplace safer. For every major accident, there are 30 minor accidents and 600 near misses. Those are 600 chances to fix a problem before someone is hurt. Since near misses tend to be smaller incidents, they are usually easier and less expensive to remedy.

In most near misses, pure luck is all that stands between injuries, fatalities or damage. While human error can be a component of near misses, defective machinery and equipment enables or increases the damage.

In September an explosives handler was operating a vacuum/heat sealer when the worker noticed that sparks were escaping the heat tape on the machine. The explosives handler notified the supervisor.

After the building was evacuated, an engineer determined that the heat tape was worn down, causing the vacuum/heat sealer to short out and produce sparks.

Thanks to the explosive handler’s attentiveness, the issue was resolved before anyone was injured and production resumed less than 24 hours later.

If the worker had not spoken up, the problem would have become worse and could have resulted in serious injury.

All you need to do to report a near miss is inform your supervisor. The supervisor will then document the near miss and directorate admins will distribute a report. The safety office will then investigate the incident.

NEAR MISS

FOLLOW UP REPORT:

10 CRANE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE | October-December 2017

Guidance from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis

The Defense Department is on a wartime footing and the pursuit of global security and stability requires that the U.S. armed forces remain the world's preeminent fighting force, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in an Oct. 5 memorandum to all DoD personnel.

The topic of the memo was “Guidance from Secretary Jim Mattis” and he began by saying that the start of a new fiscal year is an opportunity for greater alignment across the department.

“As a member of the U.S. Department of Defense,” he wrote, “you play a vital role in supporting the 3 million men and women — uniformed and civilian — who fight for our nation’s interests abroad.”

Department at War

DoD’s military and civilians are sworn to protect and defend the Constitution and America’s people and its values, the secretary added, noting that America’s military reinforces traditional tools of diplomacy, ensuring that President Donald J. Trump and U.S. diplomats negotiate from a position of strength.

“We are a department at war,” Mattis wrote, describing the increasingly complex global security situation as characterized by “an accelerating decline in the management of the rules based international order.” He specified North Korea, Russia, China and Iran, and, despite gains made against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, terrorist groups that continue to murder innocents and threaten peace. “Pursuit of global security and stability requires our armed forces to remain the world’s preeminent fighting force,” Mattis continued, “and our department has three lines of effort to enable us to remain the world’s preeminent fighting force.”

Sense of Urgency

“I expect you to pursue actively these three lines of effort,” Mattis wrote.

“Set disciplined goals, collaborate across components and model appropriate ethical behavior,” he added. “ … Use your force of personality to lead with a sense of urgency and purpose every day, so that we leave this department in even better shape for those that follow.”

Handwritten above his signature, Mattis added, “CHARGE!”

By Cheryl Pellerin DoD News, Defense Media Activity

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Bring business reforms to the DoD.

Specific reforms in progress include the congressionally mandated creation of a chief management officer, realignment of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics position and DoD’s first full-scope financial audit in fiscal year 2018.

How CAAA Supports the SECDEF’s Three Lines of Effort

Restore military readiness as the department builds a more lethal force.

Priorities include a safe and secure nuclear deterrent, fielding a decisive conventional force, and retaining irregular warfare as a core competency.

Strengthen alliances and attract new partners.

Continue to work with allies, partners and coalitions to reinforce the safety and security that underpins peace and economic prosperity for all nations.

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We will execute a multiyear plan to rapidly rebuild the warfighting readiness of the Joint Force, filling holes in capacity and lethality while preparing for sustained future investment. -Defense Secretary Jim Mattis

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How CAAA supports:

• Manages approximately 25 percent of the DOD’s conventional strategic munitions for the Joint Force

• Looking at new ways to renovate and manufacture strategic munitions to support urgent warfighter needs

Alliances don’t just mean partnerships overseas, but partnerships in the military. It’s very clear that at Crane it’s a joint partnership and they’re doing some great things between the Navy and the Air Force and the Army and the Marine Corps. –Kristin French, Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Material Readiness

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How CAAA supports:

• Joint partnerships with NSA/NSWC

• Works with private industry through public-private partnerships (P3s) to provide munitions to the warfighter when and where they are needed. Augments private industry capabilities and provides receipt, storage, and handling of energetic materials

This line of effort instills budget discipline and effective resource management, develops a culture of rapid and meaningful innovation, streamlines requirements and acquisition processes, and promotes responsible risk taking and personal initiative.

-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis

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How CAAA supports:

• Decreased total life cycle cost on equipment to $32 million over next nine years

• Provides the lowest cost rate in the OIB

• Army Working Capital Fund Capital Investment Program - $13M Crane Flexible Manufacturing Complex

www.crane.army.mil

Only Our Best For The World’s Best

“We are all safety officers and the welfare of every employee begins with you.”

-Col. Michael P. Garlington,Commander

Crane Army Ammunition Activity