The Air Force acquisition community recently launched its own “extreme makeover” to achieve excellence.

Many people across the Air Force acquisition community agree that the acquisition process needs improvement. “Going Green” capitalizes on the improvement concept.

The objective of Going Green is to deliver projects done right, on time and within the budget promised.

“(Air Force) products are the best, which is a direct reflection on the quality of people we have acquiring our warfighting capabilities, but we must change the way we do business and deliver to our commitments of cost and schedule,” said Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne.

Going Green is the acquisition community’s plan to create a culture that gets things done quicker and more efficiently -- or “green” on a stoplight in terms of cost, schedule and performance measurements. It uses a holistic approach, borrowing from existing, successful tools and ideas to shorten review chains, flatten organizational hierarchies, tighten development cycles and minimize inefficiencies that cause programs to cost more and take longer than expected.

The goal is 95 percent of the acquisition programs to be green by 2010.

“We need to ensure false optimism doesn’t cloud our judgment,” said Lt. Gen. Don Hoffman, military deputy for the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition. “We need to ensure we have a solid lock on requirements and do we have our best estimate of cost and schedule as we assess program risk.”

Going Green falls under Secretary Wynne’s Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st century initiative.

Smart Operations incorporates concepts and principles from Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, Business Process Reengineering and common sense to define how the Air Force thinks and operates. It applies across organizational, functional and capability boundaries within the Air Force and with strategic partners to improve all Air Force processes to deliver required effects.