Vance AFSO 21 event makes deployment processing easier

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Mary Davis
  • 71st Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
VANCE AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Anyone who's ever deployed knows how difficult "getting out of town" can be. Stacks of paperwork, tons of training and countless trips across the base over several weeks can be challenging for Airmen warriors who have enough stress on their plates as it is. The process was long, tiring and needed positive improvements. 

That's where Air Force Smart Operations 21 comes into play - maximizing usefulness while minimizing wastes of resources, manpower and time. 

The focus of Vance's AFSO 21 event was streamlining all or part of the deployment process to gain efficiencies, resulting in equipped, trained, medically-qualified Airmen with proper documentation, delivered to combatant commander on time. This meant a lot of work for a 25-person team that spent a week mapping processes and identifying ways to work "smarter" not harder. 

"The AFSO 21 process is all about eliminating waste and unnecessary work," said Maj. Darin Gibbs, 71st Logistics Readiness Squadron commander, and AFSO 21 team leader. "It is amazing how getting the right people together to evaluate and improve a process can produce outstanding results." 

In the past, deployers spent an inordinate amount of time visiting numerous base agencies, completing paperwork and accomplishing training, which was difficult considering the lack of organization and synergy throughout the entire process. 

The team brainstormed, mapped and simplified the process to create a more seamless and less stressful way to ensure Airmen were thoroughly prepared for their contingencies. 

Some of the improvements included collocating certain deployment functions, creating a 24-hour pre-deployment training "plus" week, proactively obtaining supply items and creating an e-checklist so involved base agencies have oversight on deployers' progress. 

"Through this process, we were able to obtain an Air Education and Training Command waiver for how supply rules are applied and are working to change the process Air Force wide," Major Gibbs said. "We focused the process around the deployer and the combatant commander as the customers. The goals were simple, to provide the combatant commander a trained, equipped, medically qualified Airman with proper documentation." 

Positive changes are fundamental at every level, and leadership involvement was beneficial in making the changes stick. 

"Wing leadership support and involvement in AFSO 21 was beneficial on many levels," Major Gibbs said. "It made them more cognizant of what units and deploying Airmen go through before contingencies." 

The major echoed what the Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley said about the program last year, "For such a comprehensive effort to be successful, it has to be led by commanders at all levels - from the front." 

Results of the program will cut 80 percent of the workload for mobility personnel, decrease 86 percent of organization actions with overall wing improvement of 81.5 percent. 

"We eliminated a substantial amount of work for base agencies and the customer," said Jim Malachowski, Wing Historian and AFSO 21 facilitator. "Of the six AFSO 21 events I have assisted in, this one exceeded my expectations. It was so successful, that it spurred two other AFSO 21 events."