2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

500
communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, as well as combat search and
rescue."
Increasingly, the Air Force describes itself operationally in terms of AEFs rather than wings or
wing equivalents. A full AEF rotation cycle is 15 months. It is divided into five 3-month
periods, and during each of these, two of the AEFs are vulnerable to deployment.
In August 2002, Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF), General John P. Jumper, issued a Sight
Picture entitled “The Culture of our Air and Space Expeditionary Force and the Value of Air
Force Doctrine.” General Jumper’s comments included: “Concerning what I call “The Culture
of the Air and Space Expeditionary Force,” everyone in the Air Force must understand that the
day-to-day operation of the Air Force is absolutely set to the rhythm of the deploying AEF force
packages. Essential to this cultural change is our universal understanding that the natural state
of our Air Force when we are “doing business” is not home station operations but deployed
operations. The AEF cycle is designed to provide a rhythm for the entire business of our Air
Force, from assignment cycles to training cycles and leave cycles. That process needs to be the
focus of our daily operational business. We must particularly work to change processes within
our own Air Force that reach in and drive requirements not tuned to the deployment rhythm of
the AEF. That means that when the 90-day vulnerability window begins, the people in that
particular AEF force package are trained, packed, administered, and are either deploying or
sitting by the phone expecting to be deployed. There should be no surprises when that phone
does ring, and no reclamas that they are not ready. More important, there should be no reclamas
because someone other than the AEF Center tasked people in the AEF for non-AEF duties.”
Operational commanders at all levels have found it difficult to maintain enough qualified airmen
to meet personnel deployment demands for the Unit Type Code (UTC) requirements that have
been levied on their units.
This problem was elevated to HQ AETC, and the Director of Operations (DO) hosted a
conference with Air Force Career Field Managers (AFCFMs) of a selected sample of Air Force
specialties to determine if the apprentice (or 3-skill level) airmen could be task-certified to meet
some deployment requirements identified for journeyman or 5-skill-level requirements.
In preparation for this conference, HQ AETC/DO requested AFOMS assistance in developing a
survey to determine if 3-skill-level personnel could be used for some AEF UTC requirements.
AFOMS is responsible for conducting occupational analyses for every enlisted career field
within the Air Force and for selected officer utilization fields. AFOMS is an operational
scientific organization that is often in contact the senior enlisted and officer career field
managers through Utilization and Training Workshops (U&TWs). Occupational surveys
generally provide information in terms of the percentage of members performing jobs or tasks,
the relative percentage of time spent performing tasks, equipment used, task difficulty, training
emphasis, testing importance (for enlisted specialties only), and the skills necessary to perform
45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003