It is extremely important to follow certain procedures whenever you are tasked to work on an aircraft. Several things must happen before you can just walk onto the flight line. The first of many steps is to log on to OOMA and to make sure that you put yourself in work on the specific MAF you are to be working on. This step is essential because the Desk Sergeant needs to be aware of your whereabouts at any given time. The Desk Sergeant must be notified of any job status change that you may make through the course of the day. In the event of an emergency or a reprioritization of tasks, the Desk Sergeant may need to call you off a job at any given moment.
Having the applicable publication is required when working on any gripe on the aircraft. The publication is necessary for any work to be done because every job must be done step-by-step from the text. This will also save you from any embarrassment that may come from a mistake. If you follow the text verbatim, you cannot make a mistake. This will prevent you from causing any damage to the aircraft, yourself or other Marines.
Checking out equipment properly is crucial. Everything ATAF-able must be checked out. If anything is not checked out properly, we immediately can no longer account for all items. Accountability is everything. If just one item is not accounted for, there is instantly a high risk of FOD or even a security breach if a confidential item is lost. Steps taken to prevent this include the tool tag, which is an effective but not a perfect system. The tool tag is a helpful item which acts as a form of currency around the squadron, a primitive bartering item per say. While it proves to be effective, it is still critical that we check out items in a logbook. Tool tags have a tendency to be lost by tool room, or even our own Marines.
While OOMA, tool check-out, and having the right publications are all important steps, it is also important to make sure that you have the proper resources for the job...