OSA program keeps better track of Vance’s aircraft, pilots

  • Published
  • By Jessica Gibson
  • 71st Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
VANCE AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Nearly every day, the skies above Vance are filled with the roar of plane engines. Hundreds of sorties are flown on any given day, both in local airspace and on cross-country missions. Keeping track of each plane and pilot is a complicated process, but a necessary one. Fortunately, the new Off-Station Accountability program is here to help.

At the end of flying operations every day, squadron commanders are required to report the day's activity, any sorties that were cancelled and why, and if there are any aircraft off-station at the end of a duty period.

Col. Kurt Meidel, the 71st Operations Group commander, noticed that each squadron was reporting their information in different formats at different times and with different levels of detail.

This often led to confusion and miscommunication between the squadrons and the wing command post when the controllers took over the airfields at the end of the day.
At the end of March, Colonel Meidel, met with Terri Schaefer, the "black belt" manager of Vance's Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century office.

AFSO21 is an Air Force-wide program designed to reduce waste of time, manpower and money, and to further its mission of continuous performance improvement.

"Colonel Meidel came down and said, 'We would like a standardized product that tells us where our aircraft are afterhours,'" Mrs. Schaefer said. "He pretty much said, 'Go forth and give me something!'" she said, with a laugh. "He didn't give us specifics on how to do it, but that's how we work."

It's problems like this one that AFSO21 is designed to address. Mrs. Schaefer gathered a team of leaders from each squadron to brainstorm ideas, develop a plan, and then to put their solution into action.

AFSO21 facilitators Capt. Darwyn Klatt and Master Sgt. Ronald Samsel came in to help guide the team. Facilitators are unfamiliar with the department they're working with so they can ask questions that may seem obvious but are key to finding and addressing the problem, said Mrs. Schaefer.

Lt. Col. Marc Dauteuil, the 8th Flying Training Squadron commander, assisted with the program's development. He stressed the necessity of communicating the location of each aircraft and aircrew not only at the end of flying operations, but throughout the day as well.

"Whenever aircraft leave, or when they're coming in, we have to report it," said Colonel Dauteuil. "Each squadron had a different way of reporting. That made it difficult for the leadership to have a clean look at what was going on," he said.

The first step in addressing the problem, Mrs. Schaefer said, was to map out the process step-by-step and identify the problem spots. The result is a series of posters lined with multi-colored sticky notes: blue ones for the individual steps within the process, and pink ones with comments about what's wrong with each step.

Typically, Mrs. Schaefer's walls are very pink. "The basic goal is to get rid of sticky notes," Mrs. Schaefer said.

Once all the issues have been identified, brainstorming begins. "The team sits down and goes, OK, let's break down this issue to the root causes," explained Mrs. Schaefer. "We ask why over and over until we hit a dead end."

Finally, the team decided to take advantage of an existing tool used widely on Vance -- the Sharedrive, also called the S-drive.

The S-drive is a base-wide system accessible to all members with a network account. "Simply put, it has everything," Mrs. Schaefer said. All files on any computer connected to the S-drive can be saved to the S-drive and be available to anyone with access to the S-drive. However, some files can be restricted if needed.

Imagine a massive fishing net on a boat. Everyone on the boat can put fish into the net and anyone on the boat can get any fish they need out of the net.

The AFSO21 team decided to design a reporting program on the S-drive that allows squadron commanders to log on and report their daily activity in a format accessible by other squadron commanders, the command post and base leadership. The program is called "Off-Station Accountability."

The program organizes reports for each squadron based on date or tail number, showing how many sorties were flown on a given day or with a specific aircraft. Its coolest feature, Mrs. Schaefer said, is it organizes cancelled sorties and explains why they were cancelled.

"It's a better common language for the squadrons and gives the commanders more visibility," Mrs. Schaefer said. "Now, at the end of the day, the commanders ask, 'Where are all my planes?' and they can go into the S-drive and see."

This is especially important during an emergency, Mrs. Schaefer added. "If there's a tornado, and our pilots need to land somewhere else, they can report it, and the commanders can put it on the off-station list so we know where everyone is. It's their safety we're concerned about more than anything else."

Although still awaiting the official changeover to the Off-Station Accountability program, Colonel Dauteuil said that the squadron commanders have been using the program consistently and so far there have been no problems with the program.

"The commanders have knowledge of where their assets are and can develop a plan for them," Colonel Dauteuil said.

Since Off-Station Accountability has been in use, information availability regarding end of flying operations has increased from 20 to 100 percent.

Successes like these define the mission of AFSO21. Col. Roger Witek, the 71st Flying Training Wing vice commander, was pleased with AFSO21's performance so far. "My assumption is that we will be continually challenged with fewer resources and manpower, but we still need to get our mission done. It's a mechanism to find ways to accomplish what is still expected."

Mrs. Schaefer stressed the importance of the team effort in AFSO21 operations. "I can fix minor things all day, but for the overall plan to actually work, the team has to do it. They're the ones that are so important. They make AFSO21 work."

The team varies from operation to operation based on what knowledge is required, but consistently since the program was introduced to Air Education and Training Command in October 2009, AFSO21 has upheld its mission of continuous performance improvement.