Kitproofing Was the Key to Installing Changes to Minuteman While Guaranteeing Its Integrity
During the Cold War, the Minuteman Missile Weapon System was capable of launching thousands of nuclear warheads.
They would have destroyed all of civilization had they been launched.
It was this stark fact that made Minuteman such a heavily guarded operation.
No one, whether military or civilian, could get into a Minuteman operational site without having both a government clearance and a legitimate reason for being there.
This protective anxiety carried over to every phase of Minuteman.
Nuclear safety was the primary consideration behind every aspect of the missile system.
There were NO-LONE ZONES at all operational sites where no one was allowed to be by himself.
To prevent unauthorized access to live equipment, maintenance consisted of replacing faulty equipment at the site and then doing the troubleshooting on base at the Electronics Lab.
An elaborate system of manuals, called Technical Orders (TO's), were developed and made standard over the entire missile.
Maintenance was done in accordance with the TO's and it was a court martial offense to deviate from the TO's.
Kitproofing was the only activity that could take place on an active site without using TO's.
That was because kitproofing was the key to installing changes to Minuteman while guaranteeing its integrity.
As such, it was a unique event.
Whenever the Air force went through an upgrade to Minuteman, new paperwork had to be developed to install these changes.
The civilian contractor who won the installation contract would write the detailed procedures that were to be used for fleet wide installation.
However, these procedures had to be checked out, amended, and corrected to insure that everything was in accordance with Minuteman rules and regulations.
To accomplish this, a Minuteman Air Force Base would be selected and a kitproofing meeting would be convened.
The attendees would be representatives of every interested military and civilian agency and the installing contractor.
At first, they all sat around a table and read every procedure and checked each piece of equipment.
When everyone was satisfied that the procedures were in shape to begin work, the contractor would go out to a designated site, or sites, and perform the procedures as corrected by the kitproofing committee.
After the work was completed, all changes that were made on site would be reviewed and incorporated into the working documents.
Shortly after that, a team would be sent out by the installing contractor to perform the fleet wide installation and checkout of the new equipment.
In early February of 1981, General Telephone and Electronics (GTE) won a contract to install an upgraded radio system in all of the Launch Control Centers of the Minuteman Missile System and at the Strategic Air Command Centers in Nebraska and Colorado Springs.
The value of the contract to install the 105 radios, plus a few other changes was well over 25 million dollars.
This was the very first Installation And Checkout contract that Boeing lost to GTE.
My boss asked if I would be interested in going to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and head the GTE kitproofing team.
The moment he finished speaking I accepted the offer because I knew it would be my kind of assignment, difficult and unpredictable.
I was given three weeks to assemble a team and have installation procedures ready for kitproofing.
The first thing I did was review the paperwork that accompanied the contract.
The radio had been designed, built, and redesigned by Westinghouse.
The radio was called the Survivable Low Frequency Survival System (SLFCS).
When I was given the paperwork I was told that Westinghouse had been barred from bidding on the installation contract.
That fact didn't register with me until a few days later when someone in Westinghouse, who claimed to be a vice president, called me to say that Westinghouse might not support the kitproofing effort and that the Air Force was a bunch of bastards.
I told him that his problem was with the Air Force and not GTE and that he would do well not to violate his contract.
He called me a bastard and hung up.
I assembled a crew of six men who were intelligent and good workers.
There was a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, two technicians, a quality control man and a technical writer.
We all hammered away at trying to lay out a set of solid installation procedures before we left for Whiteman Air Force Base because we knew that we would have a fight on our hands.
I was not disappointed in our reception; actually, I underestimated the hostility we faced.
Boeing was unhappy that we had won the contract from them.
Westinghouse was furious that they weren't allowed to bid and all the other civilian contractors and government agencies had no idea of how GTE was going to handle this new contract.
It was a devil's brew that my team and I had to overcome.
The first one or two days were vitriolic.
Twelve or fourteen of us sat around a large table and did nothing but defend our companies and our agencies no matter what was said.
We fought over every comma, every sentence, every paragraph.
Tempers were short as no one was willing to admit that their organization might be mistaken.
Then, a remarkable thing began to happen.
With the possible exception of the two Westinghouse engineers, all of us had worked on Minuteman for years and we knew, and respected, each other.
As we began to study the problems facing the installation, our individual sense of pride began to replace our rancor.
We had been asked to resolve a Minuteman problem and that is what we should be doing.
Our devotion to doing what was right took precedence over our differences.
Each of us had always worked to keep Minuteman up and running and honesty and cooperation were more important to us than posturing.
The work effort began to flow.
It took a while, but the installation procedures were slowly edited and corrected.
Within a given Minuteman Launch Control Facility, SLFCS could have one of two different physical configurations.
That meant that a kitproofing procedure had to be written for each of the two configurations.
When both were finished, and amended, three of my crew and I went to the designated Launch Control Facility (LCF) to install the first of the radios.
We chose the most difficult installation and we were accompanied by Westinghouse and Boeing engineers, Air Force quality control, TRW system engineers, and several other interested parties.
We unbolted two electronic racks from the floor of the LCF and took them back to the base Electronics Lab and started to modify them while another crew began rerouting cables at the LCF.
The work went smoothly and, within a few days, we completed the installation of the SLFCS radio at the LCF.
After the paperwork was corrected, we were ready for the second installation.
At the next LCF we were accompanied by a lot less people as we went about our business.
The job went even more smoothly and, on March 30, as we took the elevator sixty feet down to the LCF to finish our last day on the site, we were alone.
We had no onlookers that day because all we were doing was bundling up our new cables and removing our tools and equipment.
I figured we would be finished in three or four hours and I was pleased; kitproofing had been a long and difficult seven weeks for me.
While we were working, the Red Phone on the Command Console began its unmistakeable warbling tones.
The Capsule Commander, Major Gordon, grabbed the phone.
As he picked it up he was facing me, about ten feet away; as he started to talk, he turned his back to me.
The phone call was very short.
When he had finished he turned and motioned me to come over to him.
He asked, "Mr.
Carp, how much longer will you be working down here?" "I'm not sure Major Gordon, Maybe a half hour or more.
" "That may not be good enough.
That phone call was from Higher Headquarters.
President Reagan was just shot and they are trying to determine whether it was a lone madman or an organized plot.
If it is a plot I will have to close the blast door and go on full alert.
Headquarters will be calling me back within twenty minutes.
"In the meantime, if you can get out of here you should.
If I go on alert all of you will have to go to the back of the capsule and face the blast door until the alert is cancelled.
Nobody knows how long that will be.
It would be better for both of us if you can leave before my next phone call.
" I thanked him and walked over to where the three other GTE men had been standing.
I said, "Listen, don't argue, don't ask questions, just do.
We need to be out of here in ten minutes.
Everybody get busy and get it done" We worked and did it in twelve.
As we were leaving the capsule, Major Gordon swung the heavy blast door shut.
While we were returning to the surface in the elevator, I filled everyone in on what Major Gordon had told me.
It wasn't until we returned to Whiteman Air Force Base, three hours later, that we were told that the attack was by a lone gunman.
When I returned to my office in Needham, Massachusetts, I took a week off for a vacation.
I had had my fill of kitproofing.
They would have destroyed all of civilization had they been launched.
It was this stark fact that made Minuteman such a heavily guarded operation.
No one, whether military or civilian, could get into a Minuteman operational site without having both a government clearance and a legitimate reason for being there.
This protective anxiety carried over to every phase of Minuteman.
Nuclear safety was the primary consideration behind every aspect of the missile system.
There were NO-LONE ZONES at all operational sites where no one was allowed to be by himself.
To prevent unauthorized access to live equipment, maintenance consisted of replacing faulty equipment at the site and then doing the troubleshooting on base at the Electronics Lab.
An elaborate system of manuals, called Technical Orders (TO's), were developed and made standard over the entire missile.
Maintenance was done in accordance with the TO's and it was a court martial offense to deviate from the TO's.
Kitproofing was the only activity that could take place on an active site without using TO's.
That was because kitproofing was the key to installing changes to Minuteman while guaranteeing its integrity.
As such, it was a unique event.
Whenever the Air force went through an upgrade to Minuteman, new paperwork had to be developed to install these changes.
The civilian contractor who won the installation contract would write the detailed procedures that were to be used for fleet wide installation.
However, these procedures had to be checked out, amended, and corrected to insure that everything was in accordance with Minuteman rules and regulations.
To accomplish this, a Minuteman Air Force Base would be selected and a kitproofing meeting would be convened.
The attendees would be representatives of every interested military and civilian agency and the installing contractor.
At first, they all sat around a table and read every procedure and checked each piece of equipment.
When everyone was satisfied that the procedures were in shape to begin work, the contractor would go out to a designated site, or sites, and perform the procedures as corrected by the kitproofing committee.
After the work was completed, all changes that were made on site would be reviewed and incorporated into the working documents.
Shortly after that, a team would be sent out by the installing contractor to perform the fleet wide installation and checkout of the new equipment.
In early February of 1981, General Telephone and Electronics (GTE) won a contract to install an upgraded radio system in all of the Launch Control Centers of the Minuteman Missile System and at the Strategic Air Command Centers in Nebraska and Colorado Springs.
The value of the contract to install the 105 radios, plus a few other changes was well over 25 million dollars.
This was the very first Installation And Checkout contract that Boeing lost to GTE.
My boss asked if I would be interested in going to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and head the GTE kitproofing team.
The moment he finished speaking I accepted the offer because I knew it would be my kind of assignment, difficult and unpredictable.
I was given three weeks to assemble a team and have installation procedures ready for kitproofing.
The first thing I did was review the paperwork that accompanied the contract.
The radio had been designed, built, and redesigned by Westinghouse.
The radio was called the Survivable Low Frequency Survival System (SLFCS).
When I was given the paperwork I was told that Westinghouse had been barred from bidding on the installation contract.
That fact didn't register with me until a few days later when someone in Westinghouse, who claimed to be a vice president, called me to say that Westinghouse might not support the kitproofing effort and that the Air Force was a bunch of bastards.
I told him that his problem was with the Air Force and not GTE and that he would do well not to violate his contract.
He called me a bastard and hung up.
I assembled a crew of six men who were intelligent and good workers.
There was a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, two technicians, a quality control man and a technical writer.
We all hammered away at trying to lay out a set of solid installation procedures before we left for Whiteman Air Force Base because we knew that we would have a fight on our hands.
I was not disappointed in our reception; actually, I underestimated the hostility we faced.
Boeing was unhappy that we had won the contract from them.
Westinghouse was furious that they weren't allowed to bid and all the other civilian contractors and government agencies had no idea of how GTE was going to handle this new contract.
It was a devil's brew that my team and I had to overcome.
The first one or two days were vitriolic.
Twelve or fourteen of us sat around a large table and did nothing but defend our companies and our agencies no matter what was said.
We fought over every comma, every sentence, every paragraph.
Tempers were short as no one was willing to admit that their organization might be mistaken.
Then, a remarkable thing began to happen.
With the possible exception of the two Westinghouse engineers, all of us had worked on Minuteman for years and we knew, and respected, each other.
As we began to study the problems facing the installation, our individual sense of pride began to replace our rancor.
We had been asked to resolve a Minuteman problem and that is what we should be doing.
Our devotion to doing what was right took precedence over our differences.
Each of us had always worked to keep Minuteman up and running and honesty and cooperation were more important to us than posturing.
The work effort began to flow.
It took a while, but the installation procedures were slowly edited and corrected.
Within a given Minuteman Launch Control Facility, SLFCS could have one of two different physical configurations.
That meant that a kitproofing procedure had to be written for each of the two configurations.
When both were finished, and amended, three of my crew and I went to the designated Launch Control Facility (LCF) to install the first of the radios.
We chose the most difficult installation and we were accompanied by Westinghouse and Boeing engineers, Air Force quality control, TRW system engineers, and several other interested parties.
We unbolted two electronic racks from the floor of the LCF and took them back to the base Electronics Lab and started to modify them while another crew began rerouting cables at the LCF.
The work went smoothly and, within a few days, we completed the installation of the SLFCS radio at the LCF.
After the paperwork was corrected, we were ready for the second installation.
At the next LCF we were accompanied by a lot less people as we went about our business.
The job went even more smoothly and, on March 30, as we took the elevator sixty feet down to the LCF to finish our last day on the site, we were alone.
We had no onlookers that day because all we were doing was bundling up our new cables and removing our tools and equipment.
I figured we would be finished in three or four hours and I was pleased; kitproofing had been a long and difficult seven weeks for me.
While we were working, the Red Phone on the Command Console began its unmistakeable warbling tones.
The Capsule Commander, Major Gordon, grabbed the phone.
As he picked it up he was facing me, about ten feet away; as he started to talk, he turned his back to me.
The phone call was very short.
When he had finished he turned and motioned me to come over to him.
He asked, "Mr.
Carp, how much longer will you be working down here?" "I'm not sure Major Gordon, Maybe a half hour or more.
" "That may not be good enough.
That phone call was from Higher Headquarters.
President Reagan was just shot and they are trying to determine whether it was a lone madman or an organized plot.
If it is a plot I will have to close the blast door and go on full alert.
Headquarters will be calling me back within twenty minutes.
"In the meantime, if you can get out of here you should.
If I go on alert all of you will have to go to the back of the capsule and face the blast door until the alert is cancelled.
Nobody knows how long that will be.
It would be better for both of us if you can leave before my next phone call.
" I thanked him and walked over to where the three other GTE men had been standing.
I said, "Listen, don't argue, don't ask questions, just do.
We need to be out of here in ten minutes.
Everybody get busy and get it done" We worked and did it in twelve.
As we were leaving the capsule, Major Gordon swung the heavy blast door shut.
While we were returning to the surface in the elevator, I filled everyone in on what Major Gordon had told me.
It wasn't until we returned to Whiteman Air Force Base, three hours later, that we were told that the attack was by a lone gunman.
When I returned to my office in Needham, Massachusetts, I took a week off for a vacation.
I had had my fill of kitproofing.
Source...