Amid struggles to integrate mobility across the Air Force \u2014 including in the areas of the service handling logistics \u2014 leadership needs to do better at harnessing technology, according to one top official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If apps and smart devices can improve how the Air Force does logistics, it could have broader implications across the service, Maj. Gen. Cedric George, deputy director of resource integration and logistics chief information officer, said Nov. 29 at an AFCEA DC event in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe reality is \u2026 we\u2019re mobile \u2018lite.\u2019 It\u2019s almost like a smorgasbord \u2014 we have technology in different places and it\u2019s not fully integrated,\u201d George said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to move ourselves from a 20th<\/sup>-century, network-centric kind of role, which is what we live in, to a 21st<\/sup>-century, data-centric infrastructure. The question is how we get there in a way that balances the risk concerns we have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a corner of the Air Force where the average age of the 359 separate IT systems used to get the work done hovers around 18 years, George said the current mobile strategy isn\u2019t moving fast enough. That\u2019s leaving the service to get things done \u201cthrough brute force and on the backs of our people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He hopes to take a page from the Google playbook of failing fast and succeeding fast, balancing risk tolerance with the need for security and technology that\u2019s actually effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One way includes partnering with Silicon Valley organizations to create a mobile app that connects to logistics and combat data systems to allow real-time tracking of ongoing work, rather than airmen entering data manually into systems after a long day at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTechnology is the force multiplier it\u2019s always been \u2014 the right technology applied to the right place will drive the operational fix we need,\u201d George said. \u201cIf we get this right, it\u2019s like the stealth for [the logistics] nation \u2014 this is like the next laser-guided bomb. If we get this right, that\u2019s how big this will be for us, that we have our data using machine learning and AI \u2026 so that it\u2019s telling us a story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In another example, George said he\u2019s working with the 459th<\/sup> Air Refueling Wing\u2019s maintenance group to test out the use of smart devices on the flight line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What he thought was \u201cthey would just use it to read their tech data and\u2026do standard [connections] for instant messaging,\u201d George said. They did that but also connected the GO81 maintenance tracking system to track work they were doing on a KC-135 tanker. \u201cGO81 was never designed to be a mobile platform, it\u2019s a desktop platform, but our airmen are figuring it out and they\u2019ll continue to do it. So we have to figure out how to enable that at all levels.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Air Force’s logistics CIO wants to accelerate mobility to be more effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":17562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"4":{"categories":["your-air-force","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"your-air-force"}}},"categories":[106,29,16,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2772],"class_list":["post-18513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-it-networks","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"QPVG7TMMHBABDFIRAV6C3ZK3QE","arc_canonical_url":"\/it-networks\/2017\/11\/30\/can-mobility-transform-air-force-logistics\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n