Making history as the inspector general revamps Air Force Inspection System

Photo By Scott Sturkol | Sheryl Majka, Ron Black and Jim Gillis, 375th Civil Engineering Squadron are inspected by Lt. Col. Wanda Broussard during a combined unit inspection, Aug 24, 2011, at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. Scott AFB welcomed 180 inspectors who performed the Air Force's first-ever combined unit inspection, combining eight different inspections into one. (U.S. Air Force Photo/Airman 1st Class Kristina Lynch)  

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, IL, UNITED STATES

09.19.2011

Story by Maj. James Bressendorff 

Air Mobility Command

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- The 375th Air Mobility Wing at Scott Air Force Base recently earned an overall grade of "excellent" during the command's first-ever Consolidated Unit Inspection administered by the Headquarters Air Mobility Command Inspector General.

"The 375th Air Mobility Wing is to be commended for their willingness to be the recipient of this first-ever large scale "CUI" said Brig. Gen. Steve Arquiette, AMC IG. "Col. Mike Hornitschek and the men and women of the 375th AMW showed they are tremendous professionals."

This inspection is exceptionally unique and historically significant, officials said. For the first time in Air Mobility Command, an inspection combined numerous evaluations and assessments from multiple agencies to accomplish a very comprehensive and consolidated look at a wing's compliance with their peacetime and wartime mission directives.

Integrating and synchronizing unit compliance activities will ultimately give the wings more time to focus on keeping our airmen mission ready.

"Streamlining how we ensure the command's mission readiness will eventually pay huge dividends, and we're off to a great start," said Arquiette. "There is a tremendous opportunity to not only improve the inspection system, but to also return a tremendous amount of time to all Air Mobility Command units. By doing this smarter, more efficiently and effectively, we'll provide commanders the knowledge they need to know regarding their units' performance -- significantly enhancing their ability to hone their war fighting edge."

Over a year ago, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. Norton Schwartz, tasked the Air Force Inspector General (TIG), Lt. Gen. Marc Rogers, to improve the Air Force Inspection System. While simple in request, it was incredibly complex to implement.

Essentially this meant the Air Force needed to combine, integrate and co-schedule more than 80 wing inspections, assessments and evaluations from multiple agencies and organizations. This may be seen as a daunting task when someone considers the Air Force IG currently oversees only about 20 to 30 percent of all of these events as the others come from the functional areas of the major commands, the Air Force and entities outside the Air Force. The goal for the Air Force Inspector General "is to synchronize compliance efforts; hence change is now in progress."

"The overall goal of the Consolidated Unit Inspection is to reduce the number of functional inspections, assessments and evaluations imposed on a Wing by integrating or synchronizing them with IG inspections; this will give units more time to train and sustain a constant state of readiness," said Oscar J. Padeway, the Deputy Director of Inspections for the Air Force Inspector General, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. "The end state of these inspections gives commanders consolidated, relevant information on the health of their unit's programs and readiness while giving them more flexibility to better manage their unit's valuable, but limited, time and resources."

For the IG community, implementation of the CUI represents not only a change of mindset, but also change of culture.

"Historically, the basic compliance inspection requirements have not changed since their development by Capt. Curtis LeMay many years ago," said Col. Andrew Molnar, chief of the Policy and Process Division of AMC IG. "But what has changed, as the Air Force matured, is that other Air Force functions identified criteria which also needed compliance oversight, and those assessments were established on their own timeline outside the scope of the IG."

"The CUI is the direct result of an Air Force initiative that originated during a 4-Star Corona discussion last year regarding the lack of wing calendar 'white space' and thus the lack of time for commanders to focus on training and readiness. The sheer number of inspections, assessments and evaluations by multiple agencies, both within and outside the Air Force, took up a lot of time on a wing's calendar," said Padeway.

Following Corona, Air Mobility Command officials completed an Air Force Smart Operations 21 event in November 2010, overseen by the Air Mobility Command Vice Commander, Lt. Gen. Rusty Findley, to discern how Air Mobility Command could combine, integrate and synchronize all AMC inspections, assessments and evaluations.
When fully implemented, the Air Force IG estimates the CUI initiative could possibly reduce the current number of inspection days from approximately 350 days in a five year period to as few as two weeks in a two year period at most Air Force bases, according to Padeway. That is a significant reduction in inspection-time units are under scrutiny. It also streamlines the inspection process and "returns a tremendous amount of time to commanders to concentrate on mission readiness activities."

"One of the first parts of the CSAF's approach to managing the inspection process is to reinvigorate the gatekeeper program," said Molnar, who is a primary architect of the new CUI system for Air Mobility Command. Essentially, no inspection authority can go to a base without permission from the gatekeepers. So now each wing has a gatekeeper, and the major commands have gatekeepers to engage on behalf of the wings if needed. Air Mobility Command is already metering how inspection authorities go in and out of each wing."

However, as with any new initiative, the IG team is working through several challenges. "Some required inspections are at a higher level than the Air Force. Some are Congressional, some are DOD-driven," said Molnar. "Other challenges are within the MAJCOM, and we are resolving these to include taking IG core inspection requirements and combining them with other functional inspections, such as aircrew standardization and evaluation requirements, that have developed their own independent compliance requirements."

As with most challenges, solutions come from the command's people. According Air Mobility Command's deputy IG, CUI success comes from fostering relationships between inspection agencies.

"The key is building relationships and trust," said Col. Adam McMillan. "By partnering with the functionals in Air Mobility Command, we're also discussing CUIs with agencies such as the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Defense Information Systems Agency and our Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve brethren to foster support and resolve inspection requirements, and inspection cycle issues."

The lessons learned from Scott AFB's CUI will be discussed at an upcoming MAJCOM IG conference in October and the other Air Force major commands will begin CUI implementation over the next few months.

• Date Taken: 09.19.2011
• Date Posted: 09.19.2011 09:50
• Story ID: 77240
• Location: SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, IL, US