The Secretary of the Air Force implemented Information Technology Lean reengineering improvements slated for the information technology acquisition process last month.

The Electronic Systems Center's Operations Support Systems Wing will begin to use the process immediately, with the Air Force-wide implementation set for May 28.

In the past, the Air Force used numerous processes to develop, test, field and support IT systems.

"Because no integrated framework was in place to guide system development and to consistently account for security, interoperability, supportability, sustainability and usability, applications sometimes arrived late-to-need and were unable to satisfy the breadth of warfighter needs,” said Lt Gen Michael Peterson, Air Force Warfighting Integration deputy chief of staff.

"Delays can often be attributed to the long, serial processes developers were forced to follow as they carried new applications and systems to implementation," he said.

The new IT lean process implements an enterprise approach to system development and will phase out the use of Certificates of Networthiness and Certificates to Operate that were causing some of the system delays.

Before, the CoN and CtO were required for any system that operated on the Air Force Network. Systems were certified for security, sustainability and to make sure they would operate in the Air Force enterprise environment without negatively impacting the network.

"Tackling the certification process at the end of system development delayed delivery of applications to the user," the general said. "The lack of an integrated IT lean process also caused some SISSU issues to be considered late in the development process.

“Late discovery of security and other problems, which could have been resolved sooner, contributed to late deliveries,” he said.

The general said, "This will change with IT lean. Those organizations which conducted CoN and CtO evaluations late in the process are now involved up-front; this way, they can partner with the program office to resolve issues before they become problems, avoiding cost and schedule overruns and most importantly delivering exactly the capabilities our warfighters require."