Symposium highlights changing times

  • Published
  • By Kari Tilton
  • Ogden Air Logistics Center Public Affairs
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah (AFPN) --  Future Air Force budgets with fewer modernization dollars are requiring Air Force people to change processes to make current aircraft last longer.

This is one topic Dr. Marvin Sambur, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, discussed here at the 25th Annual Air Force Association Focus on Defense symposium.

The symposium, titled, "Transforming Logistics and Acquisition -- Improving Warfighter Capability for the Air and Space Expeditionary Force," drew more than 300 leaders representing the aerospace industry. Key servicemembers, national AFA leaders, Aerospace Education Foundation and local, state and national government leaders also attended.

Dr. Sambur discussed the Air Force's dedication to process improvement and transformation efforts. He called his speaking points a "burning platform."

"The pressure to change will be coming," he said. A "train wreck" will occur if organizations throughout the Air Force do not change their processes, he added.

Air Force people need to adapt and evolve processes to a changing climate, he said. Aircraft the Air Force was planning to retire will now be staying in the inventory longer because of a lack of funding for modernization. Less funding for modernization creates a need for more money to keep older aircraft flying, and ultimately, a need for processes to work smarter, he said.

"The sustainment community needs to work within constrained budgets," he said. People need to develop philosophies that incorporate the reality of weapons systems lasting longer, he said.

Dr. Sambur said experts here are doing a wonderful job meeting these current and upcoming challenges.

People began 65 process-improvement projects during the past year which seek out and eliminate waste. Leaders looked to the symposium to further broaden process-improvement knowledge and perspectives.

"The symposium exposes people (here) to the best leaders and thinkers in the acquisition and logistics business," said Maj. Gen. Kevin J. Sullivan, Ogden Air Logistics Center commander.

General Sullivan said one of his top priorities since taking command has been to transform many of the center's depot-maintenance processes.

"While all of our acquisition and logistics professionals should be extremely proud of the superb materiel support they've provided during five conflicts over the past 13 years, we can and will do better -- that's what professionals do," he said.

While the transformation concepts discussed will affect most employees throughout Air Force Materiel Command, they will, in total, affect about half of the Air Force's people, said Lt. Gen. Donald J. Wetekam, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for installations and logistics.

"Logistics centers are actually leading the fleet (in the area of transformation)," he said at the symposium. "ALCs were traditionally looked upon as being behind the rest of the Air Force, but that's not necessarily the case now. I look at ALCs as leading the fleet, and we need to get the word out to the operational Air Force and apply lessons already learned at the centers." (Courtesy of AFMC News Service)