Well then I'll ramble a little more.
TFRs are now submitted electronically, and the summaries are also shown electronically.
On the one I submitted in theater, we had a preliminary answer a month or so later. I had observed a very dangerous condition of unusual failure on several pieces of a new type equipment. We would repair the problem, but did not know the cause, nor if the problem was going to re-appear. So when I brought it up at the weekly production meeting, I was directed to submit the TFR. A month later we emailed to find if there was a preliminary finding. The LCMM had Petawawa check for the same condition on their vehicles, and the same problem was there, although yet undetected. There was a powder around the worn area. The powder was submitted to a lab along with the failed parts. It turned out the manufacturer of the vehicles had done something that did not have a purpose, and it was causing the failure. The solution given was to remove the part, clean the area of an epoxy, and install new parts.
So this example shows the importance of the TFR. A fleetwide problem was found early, a solution was found using a lab instead of guesswork, and a solution was fielded in less than a month.
Two years later I returned on my third contract to theater, and out of the blue one day I received an email that the solution to my TFR had been found and the case was to be considered closed. So apparently the need to "tidy up" was not as pressing as the need to find the solution.
We normally had the direct ear of the LCMMs when in theater, so the TFR chain was not always followed. Often, solutions to smaller problems were found in hours if not days. However the problem with that was that the same problems could likely be at units on Canada, so the distribution of information was not quite as simple. These days, with DRMIS, it appears the LCMMs open work orders for special inspections for each vehicle in a fleet of vehicles with results posted to the work order. The LCMMs can then review the work orders and poll for their answers.
Am I rambling now Ed?
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