Altus AFB to implement new AF inspection system

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Dillon Davis
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --   The 97th Air Mobility Wing has begun implementing the new Air Force Inspection System and will be fully functional by Oct. 1, 2014.

The new in-house inspection system will help alleviate some of the costs associated with inspection teams traveling to bases to complete biannual inspections and ensure continual mission readiness and unit compliance with U.S. Air Force regulations.

"The goal of the program here at Altus AFB is to give the wing commander a much more functional idea of how his wing is operating on a daily basis," said Major Cory Berg, wing inspection team lead. "It gives him an update of the base on a much more frequent basis to help make decisions that will help complete the mission without having to concentrate on inspection preparations."

Aside from the benefits of its frequency, the AFIS process will ensure unit compliance throughout the Air Force.

"The benefits are that the new system allows commanders to concentrate on mission readiness rather than inspection readiness," said Berg. "It also allows commanders to adequately address resources and other issues frequently as opposed to waiting years for another inspection to help identify these issues."

The system has been in effect for years as a trial basis and has proven successful in the aforementioned areas.

"The program was originally tried out over in U.S. Air Forces in Europe as a test bed, then the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, decided to implement it Air Force-wide," said Berg. "The program will be Air Force-wide, but has already been implemented in USAFE, and Air Mobility Command is nearly converted as well."
The inspection system has been operational in USAFE and will be adopted Air Force-wide by the end of the fiscal year.

"According to guidance from the CSAF, this new system will be how the Air Force completes its inspections from here on out," said Berg.

The 97th AMW Inspector General office has come up with a schedule to fully implement the inspection system here at Altus AFB and is well underway.

"In accordance with the deadline, Altus AFB has come up with a plan to accomplish the 16 key benchmarks that have been developed to implement this program. At the moment, we are approximately 25 to 30 percent complete with the key benchmarks and are scheduled to complete the plan on or before Oct. 1," said Berg.

Once the inspection team is fully functional, the qualified inspectors will fill in the role of the previous inspection teams that used to travel from base-to-base.

"The IG office of inspections and the wing's augmented inspectors will develop and carry out a base-wide schedule to include exercise, horizontal and vertical inspections," said Berg. "Horizontal inspections include wing-wide functional inspections, where as, vertical inspections include inspections of individual units or offices."

The new process will be different than before due to the size and nature of the routine inspections.

"The inspections will involve a team of approximately 20 members who inspect their respective units on a more routine basis," said Berg. "And the new system is graded based on four major graded areas: managing resources, leading people, improving the unit and executing the mission."

With the new process in effect, there will be a need for local representatives to fill the roles of the augmented inspectors.

"The augmented inspectors are selected, as needed, by their respective units, squadron and group level commanders in accordance with Air Force Instruction 90-201," said Berg.

In order for new Airmen to become qualified augmented inspection team members, they must go through a formal training class which covers expectations and the inspection process. Once completed, the wing commander or vice wing commander talks to them about their expectations for the members and then administers the Inspector General oath.

Even after going through an inspection training class, the augmented inspectors still have to show they can implement what they learned.

"Once the member completes the inspection training class, they will have one supervised inspection with a certified inspector before they too are considered a certified inspector," said Berg. "In its current stage here at Altus AFB, the inspection program has more than 70 members involved in the process and as we implement more processes to the program, the total number of inspectors could potentially increase to more than 100 members."

With changes in the inspection process, everyone is encouraged to do their part and adhere to the core values instilled in basic military training.

"Every Airman is an IG member in the sense that they are an inspector and the eyes and ears of the wing mission," said Gary Cobb, who is director of wing inspections.

"People should be aware that the program is coming to Altus and that when we come out to do an inspection in your unit, that we're coming out to help identify areas where they can improve and try not to think of the wing inspection team members as an adversarial relationship," said Berg.