Sun, Sep 07, 2008
Air Force leaders halted plans to
perform a global wing restructure which was designed to realign
fighter, bomber and rescue airlift maintenance units into flying
squadrons. Maintenance and flying squadrons will remain separate
and will continue doing business "as they have for the past four or
five years," said Lt. Gen. Kevin Sullivan, deputy chief of staff
for logistics, installations and mission support here at the
Pentagon.
"I believe there are two main reasons for this decision," he
said. "First, there was senior leader consensus that our
maintenance personnel will be better able to maintain and hone
their core competencies if they are led by maintenance
professionals up through the group level. Second, there was also
consensus that it's important to reduce the amount of turmoil and
change within the Air Force at this time. Not implementing the
global wing restructure will help provide that stability we're
looking for"
Units across the Air Force were directed last December to
implement the merge of maintenance and operations between July 1
and Nov. 30. However, acting Secretary of the Air Force Michael B.
Donley directed a delay to have an opportunity to discuss the
appropriateness and timeliness of these changes with Air Force
leaders. At an Aug. 27 summit, it was a major topic of
discussion.
"The original idea driving the wing restructure was to improve
knowledge, understanding and interoperability between ops and
maintenance," said General Sullivan, "and while the merge will no
longer happen, we still plan to offer the training we developed to
facilitate implementation of the new wing structure as a continuing
means to improve the ops-maintenance interface. We're also looking
at other ways to strengthen that ops - maintenance bond within the
existing wing structure."
The general said he appreciates the people who worked so hard to
gear up for the wing restructuring.
"We started from a standing start in December of 07, and
everything was ready to go by July of 08" he said. "I don't think
there's ever been a major reorganization so fully planned and
coordinated any faster. In addition, I believe all the planning,
all the discussions and debate that occurred during that process
were good for our Air Force. It forced us to look at areas to
improve, how to build better teamwork and we can leverage what we
learned in the existing organizational framework as well."
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