ANDREWS AFB, Md. –
The Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century era is here, and with units Air Force-wide scrambling to do more with less, the 89th Maintenance Group is beginning to flex its AFSO 21 muscle.
A six-person resource improvement team recently brought to the forefront nine initiatives that would save a maintenance group division many man-hours, cut down driving distances and according to Capt. Jeffrey B. Danielson, increase productivity output by at least 50 percent.
Captain Danielson is the 89 MXG performance management division chief. The performance management division is the first division in the group targeted for smart ops improvements.
The mission of the division is to ensure the contract with the civilian maintenance company, DynCorp, is being fulfilled properly.
Monitoring the contractors entails filing reports, entering reports into a database, getting reports to DynCorp and a myriad of other minor details.
To streamline this process, a number of ideas were tossed around. Some of the larger ideas include providing laptops for the inspectors, getting a new records database, eliminating unnecessary paper filings and changing the process of meeting flight crews.
The laptops and the new database will be the most beneficial and are currently in the works.
''The flight line is going wireless," said Captain Danielson when referring to the laptops.
The new computers will eliminate a lot of back and forth for the inspectors. Currently, they have to file reports on paper, proceed back to their office to enter the report into the database, and then return to the area they inspected and get the forms initialed off.
The laptops will allow the inspectors to file their report electronically on the spot.
This leads to another main initiative -- the new database.
''The database here now works, but there is a lot of room for improvement," said Captain Danielson.
The current database has a few time-consuming issues such as only being able to allow one user at a time or the fact that it is set up by fiscal year, which makes for the need to have multiple databases open at the same time.
The new database will correct these problems, as well as allow the 89 MXG to pull and send necessary forms electronically to DynCorp.
Another change within the division, which will free up man-hours, is a change in the process of meeting flight crews. The division will have a contracting officer representative meet the flight crew at the airplane at spot time, which can be up to three hours before a flight, to act as a liaison between the crew and DynCorp.
Now, instead of staying with the plane until take-off as they had to before, the representative only has to stay on the flight line, which frees them up for other inspections.
With the additional hours and manpower, productivity isn't the only task being boosted.
''I think it's helping morale," said Debra J. Shapland, 89 MXG contracting officer representative.
Captain Danielson agreed.
''It's only been in place for a few days, but it's already helping," he said.