Kunsan strives for smarter ways to execute with less

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Alice Moore
  • 8th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
KUNSAN AIR BASE, South Korea --  Doing things smarter is something the 8th Fighter Wing is striving for, especially with the entire Air Force having to now accomplish the mission with less. 

With every commander's call and opportunity senior leadership has had to speak with the Airmen here, they are taking to heart Air Force Smart Operations 21, a dedicated effort to maximize value and minimize waste in Air Force operations, and they want Airmen here to be involved. 

This spring, the 8th Fighter Wing will undergo an Unit Compliance Inspection, Col. CQ "Wolf" Brown, 8th Fighter Wing commander wants to use this inspection as an opportunity for Airmen here to take a harder look at how things are done and what can be improved. 

"I want to use our UCI coming up in April as an opportunity to use AFSO 21 to its fullest. This will allow us now to take a look at how we're doing business within our Air Force as well as here at the Wolf Pack," he said. "This is an opportunity for us to look at how we can do things smarter." 

Colonel Brown said the wing here is now facing the same issues as the rest of the Air Force with cuts from Presidential Budget Directive 720. Fiscal year 2008, is the year the cuts are beginning to take place. 

"Normal operations for what we did in fiscal year 2007 will be different for fiscal year 2008, due to the manpower, resources, and organization changes we're experiencing," the commander said. "Now we're faced with having to redefine how we execute business." 

Colonel Brown said the biggest challenge the wing is facing is looking to do things more efficiently and smarter in light of the competing interests across our Air Force. 

"Unfortunately, things don't always all line up together very nicely. Part of our process here is to take a look at all the different things that support our mission," he said. "When we're looking at our self-inspection checklists, we need to ask ourselves how does this relate to the mission we have to accomplish and if it supports the mission. If it doesn't support the mission or help the Airmen who support the mission, then it may be something we consider not doing anymore." 

Colonel Brown also said that when Airmen identify things that don't support the mission, the wing can also look into applying AFSO 21 ideas to change those processes.
The huge push for Airmen to reevaluate their operations here comes from Colonel Brown's personal philosophy of wanting to do things right the first time. 

"For me personally, this is the second UCI I've done in two assignments," he said. "For every UCI best practices are outlined in the report, but they never outline some of the non-beneficial practices that we probably want to make go away. It's one of those situations where we can just sit back and wait for someone else to do it or the Wolf Pack can be proactive and outline how things might be done better." 

Airmen have already been coming up with ideas saving time and man hours. The 8th Maintenance Group is constantly striving for ways to maintain sortie generation capacity despite having more than 100 less maintainers due to PBD 720 cuts. 

One of their ideas being implemented was to save time from tool inspection, check out and movement to and from hardened aircraft shelters (HAS). Crew chiefs used to have to push their tool boxes up to half a mile one way to service aircraft. Under the new plan, tool boxes will be kept in the HAS areas and all consolidated tool kits have been standardized. The result has been two hours a day of man hours saved. 

Another example of the wing cutting back, has come from the senior leadership level. 

"We looked at some of the reports, policy letters and meetings that we have for our leadership and we've been identifying those that are somewhat alike. For instance, instead of us having three meetings on the same topic, ran by three different organizations, we're having one meeting on the same topic where all three organizations attend," Colonel Brown said. "By doing this, we've saved over 1,000 man hours for our leadership across the base so they can have more opportunity to work some of the bigger issues within our wing." 

Colonel Brown said the bottom line is leadership wants the feedback of Airmen here. 

"The big picture for all of our Airmen is that as you look at the processes of how we do things and you have an idea of how to do it smarter or better, then bring it up," he said. "If you don't tell us or don't bring it up then we won't know about it and we can't actually try to get some of these issues fixed. Granted, we won't be able to implement every good idea that comes across the table, but there's probably some that are well thought out that we can probably pursue." 

Colonel Brown also emphasized the wing's three objectives coming up for the UCI, which are to ensure compliance on areas directly affecting mission accomplishment and HHQ directives, identify areas that are not value added or have become obsolete due to changes in our Air Force (personnel, process or technology) and use AFSO 21 as the avenue to change and finally, to use the UCI to make the Wolf Pack processes permanent. 

With AFSO 21 being a continuous process, Colonel Brown said the push for members of the 8th Fighter Wing to bring their ideas to the table couldn't come at a better time. 

"We're at a point where we still have to get the job done and we're dependent on doing things smarter in some cases," he said. "I hate wasting people's time, mine included. I prefer for all of us to make sure we do things right the first time since we don't have the time or resources to make multiple attempts."