Robins engineer earns DoD award Published April 2, 2007 By Damian Housman Warner Robins Air Logistics Center Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- A civilian from the 402nd Electronics Maintenance Group here has won the 2006 Department of Defense Value Engineering Achievement award. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Ken Krieg announced that Robins engineer Marty Sheppard was selected for the honor. Mr. Sheppard is lead manufacturing engineer for the 402nd EMXG. According to Mr. Krieg, value engineering is a systematic process of function analysis, identifying actions that reduce cost, increase quality, and improve mission capabilities. Though it is an individual award, Mr. Sheppard recognized the work of the entire printed wiring board facility. "This award is really for the whole shop, not just me," said Mr. Sheppard. The manufacturing engineering team includes Patty Causey, Brian Ledden, Charles Williams, Blake Ramey, Mike Wells and Ken McKinley. The project that gained the DOD-level award is a set of interface test adapters. The manufacturing engineering team works directly with 569th manufacturing shops, including circuit board, machine, cable and assembly, from conceptual design to delivery of the ITAs to the Robins software engineers rehosting their test programs to new universal test stations. Enough interface test adapters have been produced to save the Air Force thousands of dollars, and work is under way that will save the service tens of thousand more.