ANDREWS AFB, Md. –
The 89th Operations Group and the 89th Maintenance Group are working together, using Air Force Smart Operations initiatives to improve their work proficiency.
The day-to-day operations taking place at Andrews requires an ''immense amount of data flow," according to Maj. Tim Runnette, 89 OG current operations chief and one of the leads on the AFSO 21 project.
With such a large amount of data traveling between maintenance and operations, much of the days work went to coordinating with the other units, said Major Runnette.
Each group currently maintains their own schedule, which contains mission information on all the planes housed here.
Under the current system, back and forth phone calls are a daily occurrence. Each unit has to make sure they are on the same page with the other unit. This means every time something changes on one of the group's schedules it has to be coordinated with the other group.
According to Major Runnette, the scheduling board would get washed at least once a day, which can take hours.
With so much time and effort being put into making sure the units were on the same page, the groups decided to come up with a scheduling tool, which would be easier on everyone.
The new system will have one schedule that both groups have access to, which means updates will no longer require back and forth coordination.
''Getting rid of multiple documents will prevent information lag," said Major Run-nette.
The system will also be accessible to operations and maintenance simultaneously† and make scheduling the taskings received from the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff⁄ Special Air Missions easier.
CVAM currently tasks the 89 OG through a system called AviSource. The ops group will take this information and put it into their schedule and then coordinate with the maintenance group and other units to make sure everyone's schedules match.
The new scheduling system will read AviSource automatically and put the taskings on the schedule.
''Without all of this coordination, you eliminate a ton of phone calls daily," said Major Runnette. ''This causes less turmoil, makes us more efficient and guarantees a better opportunity for 100 percent mission success rate."
In addition to working smarter, both the maintenance group and operations group re-ceived something equally important out of the whole process.
''We established a good working relationship because we sat in the same room working on this project," said Major Runnette. ''This has opened up clear channels for the future to fix any bumps in the schedule and figure out what happened."