Yokota, Kadena leaders "lean" together

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Katrina R. Menchaca
  • 374th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan --  Wing Leaders from both Yokota and Kadena Air Bases came together, here September 20 and 21, as part of an Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, or AFSO21, senior leader's course.

"AFSO21 is a great opportunity to integrate the numerous tools out there to execute process improvement in the United States Air Force," said Col. Otto Feather, 374th Airlift Wing commander.

This course followed a week-long "Rapid Improvement Event" during which subject matter experts came together to improve the 374th Airlift Wing's Logistic Readiness Squadron's cargo deployment process.

"We are in a very dynamic environment; the atmosphere around us is always changing, every single day, so what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow," Colonel Feather said. "By looking at [cargo processing] and taking the time to focus on what it is we are doing and how we approach it, we have the opportunity to make sure that we are planning for success in the future."

AFSO21 is a standardized approach by which Airmen break down a day-to-day process into individual steps to determine more efficient ways of doing business. During the course leadership from both bases were able to examine the cargo deployment process and discuss any redundancy issues they may have noticed.

"We are very fortunate this week to have many of our partners from Kadena here," said Colonel Feather. "Being able to cross talk about ways of doing business is going to benefit both bases."

The 374th AW exercises cargo deployment processing on a regular basis and it is a very labor intensive task, often times with much rework. Because the ability to perform this task is critical to the wing's role in the Pacific, our goal is to reduce that rework to get our cargo downrange more smoothly, said Jonathan Albaugh, 374th AW AFSO21 director.

And that is just one of the benefits Yokota is trying to gain from AFSO21 here.

"Our mission is to help everyone meet their goals to perform their mission more effectively, we are the efficiency experts" said Mr. Albaugh.