IG inspectors provide air power

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Amy Robinson
  • Air Combat Command Public Affairs
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (ACCNS) --  Inspectors = inspections = readiness =aircraft = combat airpower

Without inspectors, Air Combat Command cannot provide combat airpower, and with budget cuts and force shaping initiatives, balancing manpower and readiness remains a challenge.

One of the ways the ACC Inspector General is overcoming the challenge of a shrinking force is by "reducing the footprint of IG inspections," said Maj. Brian Sitler, ACC IG chief of maintenance inspections. "We've reduced the number of days we spend on a unit during inspection, and we've reduced the number of inspectors we send ... it's just a new way of doing business."

With less inspectors and less inspections, the IG approached the ACC Directorate of Analyses and Lessons Learned to create a statistical sampling tool which will allow the IG to inspect fewer aircraft while ensuring maintenance readiness.

"We're not just cutting the fat, we're trying to do it smartly," the major said. "That's the essence of what [the commander of ACC] is asking us to do - don't cut randomly, but rather, take a hard look at where we can make some concessions and do it smartly."

More specifically, the IG is looking at cutting back the number of aircraft inspections conducted during Phase I exercises.

In this case, working smarter means the IG will inspect a portion, or sample, of the total number of aircraft instead of inspecting every aircraft - a sample based on statistical validation provided by the sampling tool.

"The essence of the tasking was to use statistical analysis to give us a 90 or 95 percent certainty that if we look at a smaller sample size, we can be almost positive that [from a unit of 24 aircraft] the units can generate the second 12 airplanes as well as they generate the first 12," said Lt. Col. Dave Chapman, ACC IG maintenance branch chief.

Originally, the spreadsheet started out as a table created in Microsoft Excel - if a unit has X amount of aircraft, then the IG team needs to inspect Y amount of aircraft to obtain a valid sample, said Sarah Wolf, A9 operations research analyst.

But because not all units have the same number of aircraft, the design team came up with a more user-friendly tool that accommodates all units and gives a sample size based on the number of aircraft assigned, the unit's inspection record, and the level of error and confidence the user is willing to accept.

Although Colonel Chapman said the sampling tool will benefit inspectors by giving them an additional level of confidence in the sample size they inspect, it will also benefit the units being inspected.

"If [the units] generate less aircraft, then that's a huge workload off of them," he said. "And by reducing what we do, we allow units to concentrate on other things - real-world deployments, [Air and Space Expeditionary Force] rotations and other things they have to do, while still giving [the ACC commander] a valid assessment," Colonel Chapman said.