22nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
2/26/2015 - MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. -- An Air Force Smart Operations of the 21st Century event was held Jan. 22, in order to save Airmen and the Air Force time and manpower, at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas.
Before the change, it wasn't uncommon for Airmen to spend up to three days receiving required briefings and medical checkups before they could begin their mandated rest and relaxation time after returning home from deployment.
"When you get back from deployment, the only thing you want to do is go home," said Tech Sgt. Young Suh, 22nd Contracting Squadron contract analyst. "You only want the required information and to be released without having to come back to base one or two days later."
An AFSO21 meeting was held in order to reduce the time it takes to get returning deployers on rest and relaxation.
The 22nd Operations Group lost more than 1,500 manpower days in the first 10 months of 2014 with the old reintegration process.
"The only reason our office exists is to take wastefulness out of processes and give money, time and people back to the Air Force," said Capt. Melissa Robinson, 22nd Air Refueling Wing AFSO21 chief. "I feel like if any process that gets brought to us ends up being done better, then we've done our job."
During the AFSO21 meeting, each subject matter expert, or SME, provided input on what they thought could speed up the process to reach the wing commander's goal of completing the reintegration in one day.
Using two half-days to meet and go over the process, the total time of reintegration was cut down to 3 hours and 15 minutes.
"The biggest challenge of the event was taking into account everyone's input and sometimes the SMEs could be a little biased trying to protect their squadrons," said Suh. "There can be a lot of tension in these meetings."
After the meeting with the SMEs, Suh met with wing leadership to make sure they were all on board with the process.
"I am pretty confident that we came up with a good solution for fixing the process," Suh added. "We used an eight-step problem solving technique to make sure we were covering all angles of the process."
The goal of AFSO21 is to improve the Air Force and its processes while finding ways to take care of Airmen without slowing down the mission.
"We don't fix the problems," said Robinson. "We help individuals who are a part of the process figure out what is waste and what is value added. We are more of a consultant than a fixer."
One of the biggest changes to the reintegration process is the maintenance debriefing will now take place on the jet while going through customs.
Video briefings that do not require Airmen to meet face-to-face with the briefers will be played on the bus while they are taken to their other required briefings to be more efficient and get the Airmen home sooner.
"We had to think about what was really necessary," said Suh. "And how we could condense the entire day into just a couple of hours while fulfilling the Air Force requirements."
The commander's goal was reached and re-deployers can now enjoy time with their families sooner than they ever could before.
"I think the event was very successful," Robinson added. "We are right where we want to be, making sure that we can help our Airmen get back to supporting the mission quicker."
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