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Minneapolis unit completes home station ORE

  • Published
  • By Paul Zadach & Tech. Sgt. Kimberly Hickey
  • 934th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
MINNEAPOLIS-ST PAUL AIR RESERVE STATION --   The 934th Airlift Wing completed its first home station Operational Readiness Exercise last week under new guidance ushering in a new era in Air Force inspections.
 
Feb. 13, the Secretary of the Air Force Inspector General's office released a new Air Force Guidance Memorandum to AFI 90-201, The Air Force Inspection System, that changes the way the Air Force conducts and oversees its inspection processes.

The new guidance does away with the traditional fly-away Operational Readiness Inspections every five years. Instead, wings will continuously conduct self inspections through the Management Internal Controls Toolset and perform and ORE self evaluation each year.
 
Real-world deployment activities will also be documented and will count towards meeting mission readiness standards. The wing's progress will be monitored by higher headquarters during a four year inspection period in which a higher headquarters inspection team will visit the wing at least once to verify the wing's inspection process.

During the exercise last week, 934th AW members were tested on their ability to deploy to a forward location and perform their jobs in a simulated wartime environment.
The wing created a simulated forward deployed base using tents and existing facilities at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Air Reserve Station. Once Airmen arrived at "Base X," they stood up the base by filling sand bags and assigning team roles. During the next few days, exercise evaluation team members injected battle-related scenarios for their career fields while deployed members worked to protect themselves and the base during simulated ground and air attacks.

"When our ORI was cancelled, the wing had to quickly shift gears to make this exercise happen. We no longer had the two other wings we had been working with on the ORI. The CVZ office did a great job in planning the exercise and steering the 934th toward the new inspection model," said Col. Darrell G. Young, 934th Airlift Wing commander.

Lt. Col. Michael Auel, 934th AW readiness officer, theorized the changes introduced were driven by the need to cut costs.

"It's definitely budget-driven," he said. "If we do a Readiness Assistance Visit, an Operational Readiness Exercise and an Operational Readiness Inspection, the wing will spend close to three million dollars. We spend almost a million dollars per event, including man days. That's a lot of money ramping-up."

"We now have to do an ORE every year," said Master Sgt. Danielle Romero, 934th AW Readiness Office. "It's an annual requirement."

The nature of operational readiness is evolving with a de-emphasis on Ability to Survive and Operation activities involving 'MOPP-ing up' or practice using chemical warfare gear. However, it's still a skill the wing has to practice, said Auel.

The Inspector General's guidelines still require wings to practice ATSO skills, but not with as much emphasis as past years, she said.

"That's why we did an ATSO Rodeo," said Romero. "The rest of the exercise included scenarios like conventional non-chemical missile attacks, Improvised Explosive Devices, exploding cars, and other explosives, more like down range."

"There is a much heavier emphasis on the Management Internal Controls Toolset now," said Auel. "It's a virtual set of checklists."

The checklists within MICT give Air Force Reserve Command inspectors specific snapshots of the wing's program management to determine if wing personnel are continually addressing their identified discrepancies within reasonable suspense dates, he said.

"Under the old system, there were discrepancies out there that were 500 to 600 days old or more, " said Auel. "That can't fly any longer because the inspectors are going to be watching them. There is more oversight into things."

And, there are consequences for units that do not report progress on their discrepancies or 'green up' on their checklists, meaning they report no discrepancies nor report how compliance was achieved.

"They can perform surprise inspections," said Romero. "They actually encourage those. But, it's going to be about what is setting off those bells."