New system simplifies vehicle management
by Staff Sgt. Melanie Streeter
Air Force Print News
5/7/2004 - WASHINGTON -- A new program in production aims to revolutionize the way the Air Force’s fleet of vehicles is managed.
The Logistics Integrated Asset Management System replaces five systems with one consolidated Web-based application, said Senior Master Sgt. Rex Curry, Air Force Vehicle Policy team member.
“This system will enable us to have relative, real-time, global visibility of Air Force vehicles,” Sergeant Curry said. “Now, we manually create documents for deployments and sometimes make mistakes that take time to correct. With the new system, all of this will be instantaneous.”
Many factors contribute to the complexity of managing about 87,000 vehicles the Air Force owns and 17,000 more the service leases. Airmen in the vehicle management career field are responsible for every type of vehicle from fire trucks to sedans.
“If it has wheels on it, for the most part, we manage it,” Sergeant Curry said.
Airmen make sure every vehicle in the fleet is properly maintained and new acquisitions are forecasted and worked into the budget. They also keep track of which vehicles are available for deployment when necessary. Vehicle managers administer the U-Drive program, similar to a rental-car service, and the vehicle driver’s license program, the certification to drive Air Force vehicles.
These daunting tasks can become unbearable through the existing systems.
“We have all these separate systems we have to go through before we can complete deployment orders,” Sergeant Curry said. “For Operation Iraqi Freedom, we (used) experts from each major command to pour over vehicle authorization lists to manually determine which vehicles were available for deployment.”
Officials said they are counting on the new system to prevent delays for future deployments.
“Our focus is to make the collection of data invisible,” Sergeant Curry said. “This will enable us to properly plan for reconstitution after deployment and normal extended usage.”
Customers will also see some advantages with the system, including the ability to schedule preventative maintenance at the most convenient time depending on the vehicle control officers’ workloads.
“This integrated system will ... give us better visibility so we can make wise choices with an already limited budget,” Sergeant Curry said.
And, it is an important step toward an overarching solution for all logistics commodities, he said. It is also being watched closely for application in other areas. |
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