Air Force Reserve Command

"The Air Force has become a leaner force," said Col. Joseph Vivori, director of manpower and personnel at Headquarters AFRC.

"As a result, our people have to make the best use of the resources they have," he said. "By combining manpower, personnel and services under one manager, we will reduce overall costs and give our people more flexibility to respond to their customers."

The test will involve two kinds of units -- stand-alone locations and locations that receive support from host active-duty units. Stand-alone test locations are March Air Reserve Base, Calif.; Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas; and Youngstown Air Reserve Station, Ohio. Test locations that will receive some support from their hosts are MacDill AFB, Fla.; Hill AFB, Utah; Elmendorf AFB, Alaska; and McGuire AFB, N.J.

Labor relations bargaining obligations will be satisfied with local unions in advance of the test.

Stand-alone locations will have four flights -- force development, community support, civilian personnel, and readiness and plans. Supported locations will have two flights - force development and operations, which contains many of the elements of a readiness and plans flight.

"Force support squadrons are designed to bring people and services together," said Maj. Gen. Allan R. Poulin, AFRC vice commander, who approved the test for the command. "Like the active force, we will have one agency to care for our people and manage the services that support them. It makes good business sense for us to organize the same way we deploy overseas."

Airmen and their families can expect to continue to have the same world-class support, care and facilities they've always had, say command officials. They emphasize that the merger is not about downsizing but consolidating processes and programs to better serve people.

After the one-year test ends, AFRC officials will determine how to implement force support squadrons for the entire command. (Air Force Reserve Command News Service)

The ACC Commander, Gen. John Corley, signed "War on Waste" directions Aug. 8, establishing his intent and assigning Phase 1 tasks for headquarters ACC directorates, numbered air forces, the United States Air Force Warfare Center and ACC wings. The two types of tasks in Phase 1 are "enabling" and "performance." Enabling tasks establish capabilities and set the conditions to use AFSO 21 methods for increased performance across the command. Performance tasks focus organizations to reduce wasted time and demonstrate that staff and units are employing "lean" effectively, according to a memorandum for ACC AFSO 21 offices.

Phase 1 of the "War on Waste" aims to reduce Airmen's wasted time by saving and/or redirecting five percent of Airmen's duty time. Each phase of the "War on Waste" will have measurable goals for time saved and increased productivity. In the end, eliminating waste and increasing productivity should be as much a part of our culture as disciplined attention to detail in our procedures, according to the directions for the "War on Waste."

Units will report their progress in the "War on Waste" at monthly ACC Executive Council meetings and will also submit their status to ACC AFSO 21 monthly.

Within the 99th ABW, the "War on Waste" is already under way.

"Currently, several wing agencies, including the medical group, the logistics readiness squadron and the civil engineer squadron, are conducting rapid improvement events in their functional areas," said Sergeant Robinson.

The "War on Waste" is an extension of the Air Force's pre-existing program, AFSO 21. AFSO 21 is an effort to transform the Air Force through more innovative and streamlined process to ensure warfighters have what they need without wasting time, effort or money.

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"In cases where there are shortages of airplane parts, customers come to us and we build these parts," said Tom Henrie, shop foreman. "Not only do we build emergency parts, we build a fill-in quantity to keep them going until the contractor is up and running again."

Hill AFB's 309th Maintenance Wing got the initial workload in July, as did manufacturing shops at Tinker AFB, Okla.; Robins AFB, Ga.; Edwards AFB, Calif.; and the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, Calif., to meet the Air Force request for 3,400 levers -- two for each aircraft.

The workload resulted from an April T-38 crash at Columbus AFB, Miss., which killed two pilots and destroyed the airplane. An accident investigation board determined the cause of the mishap was a mechanical failure of the right aileron, which failed in the full down position before takeoff.

The aircraft's original levers were made from a forged aluminum alloy -- heated metal pounded into shape.

"The levers we're making are machined from a solid block," Mr. Henrie said. "The material was chosen by the System Program Office and the Weapon System Engineer at Tinker AFB. The new material is considered slightly better than the original material. It's still aluminum, but it's in a solid block."

Building a forged part out of cut material can be challenging, as workers in the 532nd CMMXS found out.

Kent Law, a programmer for the 532nd CMMXS, designed three-dimensional computer model of the levers based on the part's blueprint dimensions.

"My program is certified so that the machine will cut the part accurately," Mr. Law said.

The model was used to create the tool path and cutting programs on the shop's milling machines. Before the milling began, however, a prototype was created and sent to the 309th Maintenance Support Group's Science and Engineering Laboratory to verify that all the features and dimensions would match the requested product. In addition, the first item cut on the shop's machines also was sent to the lab for verification.

Once approved, the design that controls the axis of the cuts was fed into the computers that control the milling machines, allowing five machinists to mill the parts at the same time. The initial milling, which cuts away about 60 percent of the 8-inch long, 2-inch wide, 1-inch thick piece of aluminum, takes 50 minutes.

"The original program to mill the part was running about three hours in order to get the basic geometry and all the definition into the part correct," said Layne Tilby, project engineering support staff. "After that, the program was adjusted to reduce cut time to one hour."

The levers go through two other processes where broach holes and wire slots are precisely drilled, both by machine and by hand, and another process where the part is "shot peened" or air blasted with cast steel to give it a textured finish.

Before final painting, the levers are checked on a coordinate measuring machine

"The coordinate measuring machine is kept in a climate-controlled room to keep it very stable," Mr. Tilby said. "The probe touches the part and sends the measurements to the computer and that very accurately checks the part. We inspect all the critical features on every single part -- that's our way of detecting from the five different processes, if anything went wrong anywhere."

The levers are then anodized, or coated, painted and given one more visual inspection before they're sent to the customer.

"If we find any variance or problems, this allows us to go back and pull that lot of parts back and make sure everything is good before it hits the field," Mr. Tilby said. "That's the reason for the final inspection. It's not to revalidate what the employees did, but to just catch any errors or variances between the parts."

The emergency workload involves about 20 Hill employees. These include engineers, planners and schedulers from the 532nd CMMXS, along with machinists from the 309th Electronics Maintenance Group as well as the 532nd.

"We don't often have a workload in the thousands in this shop, usually we make just one or two parts," Mr. Law said. "This tells the shop it can do what it is set up to do on production. To be able to get this kind of workload to support the Air Force just makes their work worthwhile."

As of Oct. 1, Air Force maintainers had installed the levers into 61 aircraft.

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The Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program seeks to minimize the stresses of military service, specifically when a reservist deploys and the family faces separation. Officials at Headquarters Air Force Reserve Command have recently directed that all AFRC wings enact this program.

The concept of reintegration was perhaps most noticeable as an organized, structured process during the last days of the Vietnam War. Thirty-five years ago, military receptions and programs helped prisoner-of-war returnees resume normal, professional, family and community activities with minimal physical and emotional complications.

While returning POWs received support, most combat veterans did not. Officials now know more about stresses associated with military life and combat on servicemembers and their families.

The focus of the Yellow Ribbon Program is to provide support and outreach services to reserve component servicemembers, their families and communities throughout the deployment cycle. This program places particular emphasis on preparing servicemembers and their families for the stresses associated with separation and deployment, educating members and families about resources available to assist them, and connecting members to service providers before and during deployments. The focus shifts to reconnecting servicemembers with families and communities for successful reintegration after a deployment.

In addition to predeployment activities, the program directs conducting reintegration activities after demobilization or the end of a deployment for all members who are mobilized or deployed for 90 days or more. Members will receive appropriate pay and allowances for attending these deployment support and reintegration activities.

Officials from the 507th ARW kicked off the Yellow Ribbon Program during July's redeployment of the 507th Security Forces Squadron personnel from Kirkuk, Iraq. Since their return, reservists from other squadrons in the wing have been met upon their return.

"We've met every redeployer, so far," said Lt. Col. Bonnie Tremblett, 507th ARW performance planner. She said returning members are immediately entered into the reintegration program.

More than 80 reservists attended the first 30-day reintegration session. The three-hour session featured representatives from the chaplains' office, legal office, medical group and Veterans Administration; officials from the wing Airman and Family Readiness program; and members from the Tinker AFB mental health office. Discussions ranged from employer-support issues to recognizing behavior that may occur after exposure to combat or a combat-supported deployment.

"I thought the meeting was very informative," said Tech. Sgt. Derek Wilson, a communications specialist from the 507th Communications Flight here. "There were a lot of issues I wasn't aware of as well as the discussion on insurance options available."

Lt. Col. Pete Peterson, 35th Combat Communications Squadron commander said, "The Veterans Administration and medical briefings were very important to hear. There were some things covered I never realized were available to reservists. I think it all hit home."