New analysis tool boosts AF’s wartime mission

  • Published
  • By Richard Salomon
  • Air Force Personnel Center
The Air Force has developed a new tool for personnelists and functional area managers that provides a complete and accurate accounting of deployment assets.

For the first time, FAMs at the Air Force headquarters and major command level can look at their Air Force Specialty Codes and make accurate projections of their manpower data.

"This tool allows the commander to measure the warfighting impact from PBD 720 authorization cuts and force shaping 'people' reductions," said Maj. Gen. Anthony Przybyslawski, Air Force Personnel Center commander and co-chair of the Air and Space Expeditionary Forces Steering Group. "Today, there are UTCs on the books that have vacancies which will never be filled. It's a matter of balancing our capabilities checkbook."

In the past, FAMs had to work multiple variations of positions and authorizations to meet unit type code requirements. The new posturing analysis tool cuts the process down from weeks to days.

"Instead of looking at different information from different sources, this tool puts everyone on the same page," said James Veatch, a manpower readiness programmer at the Air Force Manpower Agency whose team helped develop the new system. "With this tool in hand, we have at our fingertips all the information we need to accurately align our posturing data with what we have authorized."

Ken Moyer, who serves as a liaison for AFPC's Directorate of Air Expeditionary Force Operations to Air Combat Command, said, "In the past, there was really no way to consistently say that all our posturing data was correct. Now, with the new tool, we can accurately show our AEF assets and present them to the warfighter."

The new posturing analysis tool, which operates on a Microsoft Access platform using a Microsoft Visual Basic application, takes posturing data from Deliberate Crisis Action Planning and Execution Segments and matches it to unit manpower document authorizations pulled out of the Manpower Programming and Execution System.

The tool, which is "owned" by AFMA, was developed as a team effort between Manpower, Organization and Resources' Requirements Division, AFMA, the AEF Steering Group and the Air Force Audit Agency. Although the tool's original purpose was to assist AFAA with an AEF audit, its Air Force-wide potential was quickly realized.

"After we tweaked it and senior leaders saw its potential for the AEF, it went from the testing to the training phase pretty quickly," said Mr. Veatch. "And, once we showed it to the folks out in the field, they wanted to keep a copy right then and there. They didn't want to wait until it was officially released."

That wait, however, is over. Authorized individuals can now download the necessary files from a folder at the Air Force Functional Area Manager's Community of Practice.

"Although this new tool is practical and easy to use, its implementation is going to require some effort from the FAMs," said Mr. Moyer. "With it, however, the Air Force's readiness mission just got a whole lot stronger."