Wing rolls out new vision statement

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Scotty Sweatt
  • 916th Public Affairs Office
SEYMOUR JOHNSON AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. --  In April of this year, leaders from units throughout the 916th Air Refueling Wing held a three-day event to develop a new vision statement for the wing. The goal of those participating in the Strategic Alignment and Deployment meeting was to begin the DoD directed Continuous Process Improvement for the 916th ARW. 

The new vision statement, "Global mobility power, on time, every time" summarizes the goal of the 916th ARW. 

Col. Caroline Evernham, 916th Operations Group commander said that the process was a small part of their major AFSO21 team project. "It helped us think about what our mission is, our goals and how we would like to be viewed by the rest of the Air Force" said Colonial Evernham. 

AFSO21, short for Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, is a concept developed by senior Air Force leadership to represent a program to institutionalize continuous process improvement and also describes a new way of thinking about the Air Force. 

Tech. Sgt. Paul Titus, 916th ARW AFSO21 manager said the goal of AFSO21 is simple, "to increase mission efficiency through the elimination of wasteful steps in the everyday jobs that are done to accomplish the mission." 

Sergeant Titus contrasted the AFSO21 initiatives with the quality initiatives of the 1990's, noting that change transformation is a "two front offensive": managing from the top down and improvement from the ground level up. 

"With goals and measurements, shops and offices create change and improve processes and bring those to leadership" said Sergeant Titus. He noted that the quality movement of the 90s was only geared as a "top-down management" system, and that managing up was not used. 

Wing leadership has identified five high-level processes that 916th members perform that are critical to mission success. The AFSO21 office is currently developing the communication plan to roll these out wing-wide. Until that the time, be on the lookout for the vision statement to appear in various communication forums throughout the wing.