Improving process at core of AFSO21

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Charles V. Rivezzo
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  When you hear the term AFSO21 what comes to mind? A secret, tucked-away facility? Or maybe a new type of aircraft that has yet to take to the sky?

Contrary to these fantasy interpretations, Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, better known as AFSO21, is a program the Air Force implemented with one big picture in mind: To effectively and efficiently deliver war-winning capabilities to commanders via a standard, disciplined approach.

The program is applicable across all organizations with the ultimate objective of improving combat capability. Simply stated, the AFSO21 mindset is to attack problems, identify areas for improvement and emphasize the use of the Air Force's great resource - innovative, dedicated Airmen.

At Travis, the program is guided out of a one deep office, with David Kroll, 60th Air Mobility Wing AFSO21 specialist. Additionally, he trains and receives support from group level AFSO21 counterparts.

According to Kroll, this efficiency improvement initiative revolves around three main principles: expedition of time, reduction of expenses and quality enhancement.

"Any process can be improved and that is what we strive to achieve," he said. "It's about not accepting something just because that's how you did it yesterday or have always done it. The work process is constantly evolving. Whether it is technology, manpower or funding, we should always be thinking about what we can do to better the process."

To help improve base operations, Kroll and his group-level counterparts conduct rapid improvement events where they investigate issues raised by different units to determine what processes can be improved by eliminating wasteful actions.

Most recently, Kroll led a group of Travis Airmen to analyze how to improve the administrative discharge process timeline, looking for ways to expedite the process to meet Air Mobility Command standards. By providing improved checklists, conducting training and standardizing procedures the percentage of discharges severed and processed significantly improved in just a short period of time.

Simultaneously, medical AFSO21 Airmen are investigating a way to improve inpatient meal service at the David Grant USAF Medical Center.

"They're in the midst of doing an inpatient meal service RIE," he said. "They're looking for ways to improve the overall quality of the patient's meal service. One of the big steps they needed to accomplish was to evaluate how long it takes for the meal to get from the cafeteria to the patient and how they could better streamline the steps involved in that process."

Furthermore, maintenance AFSO21 Airmen are finishing up a paperwork reduction RIE, where they realized their expenditures for paper and printing cost were quickly eating up their annual budget.

"They analyzed historical data and Air Force Instruction-driven requirements and realized they could transition their high paperwork processes to paperless," Kroll said. "A few quick changes reduced their paper consumption by 88 percent within three months for a projected annual savings of $4,920.

"These efficiency improvement methods can literally be applied to anything, whether that be in your work center or personal life."

Lastly, Kroll stressed that the key component of this program is to free manpower, time and money for more productive ways to accomplish the mission, something the Air Force is always actively pursuing.

"With today's fiscally constrained environment, this program is more important than ever before and it is imperative we find different ways to do more with less," he said. "At the end of the day, we need to ensure successful mission accomplishment is completed in the most efficient manner."

For more information on the Travis AFSO21 program or to submit an idea, call Kroll at 424-4581 or e-mail at 60AMWAFSO21@us.af.mil.