AFIMSC single data call frees up civil engineers

  • Published
  • By Steve Warns, Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center Public Affairs

The Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center's consolidation and streamlining of data calls is making the lives of base civil engineers easier.

AFIMSC's Facility Recap and Sustainment Branch collaborated with the Air Force Civil Engineer Center's Planning and Integration Directorate to develop an integrated data call list of specific deliverables needed throughout the calendar year to help base civil engineers in programming efforts for requirements and projects.

Data calls are responses by program managers to solicit and collect information that drives those decisions. Before AFIMSC consolidated installation CE data calls, there were 13 separate programs within AFCEC asking installations for CE data at different times and with different submission processes each year. The single call for data frees up base CEs to focus on taking care of their installations and Airmen while reducing paperwork.

"Base civil engineers were getting tasked with numerous data calls, which span many different programs within the Air Force," said Ivonne Bates, AFIMSC utility asset management plan manager. "It was causing a lot of confusion at the base level and a lot of competing priorities even though they were in AFCEC and AFIMSC. To minimize the impact of base CEs receiving all these requirements for programs from all these different sources, we collectively decided to create this integrated data call."

Col. Dean Hartman, director of AFCEC's Planning and Integration Directorate, teamed with Dave Dentino, AFIMSC Installation Support director, to consolidate the calls once they learned many of the data calls to stakeholders were asking for the same thing. From there, Bates spearheaded the data call consolidation.

"If you look at the way the enterprise is set up, the spectrum of data that was being requested best aligned to intermediate headquarters because it had components of engineering, it had components of communications and it had several different (other) components," Hartman said. "It started smaller-scale, focusing on built infrastructure, but really when you look at what AFIMSC does, specifically the installation engineering section, it aligns very well to the type of information we need at intermediate headquarters."

The data call now provides leaders with a consolidated snapshot of timelines and guidance. It also provides a list of specific actions applicable to all stakeholders in one combined list so installations can plan how their resources accomplish their tasks in the timeframe provided.

"Leadership sees everything upfront, and they can go through it and have a better understanding for each program they might have to work in, whether it's military construction, unified minor military construction or a comprehensive asset management plan," Bates said. "They can effectively plan what they need to program and when it needs to be done."

AFIMSC's effectiveness in consolidating data calls is evident to Col. Michael Staples, commander of the 673rd Civil Engineering Group at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.

"When you can show people a schedule of milestones and what to do, it helps people to plan smarter," Staples said. "It allows the predictability of planning and forethought so that you don't take your eye off the prize of big program builds."