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Terminal 2010: Air Transportation Transformation

  • Published
  • By Capt. Rodney McCraine
  • Air Mobility Command, Air Transportation Readiness and Resources
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. --  With the continuing increase in operational tempo, all branches of the government must act in concert with the joint and coalition community.

Accordingly, the supporting processes and systems...like the Air Transportation Enterprise...must successfully operate in complex and oftentimes versatile ways.

Therefore, our Air Transportation Enterprise is an "enterprise within an enterprise" that requires us to take an end-to-end view to meet our customer and partner objectives. Achieving this unprecedented level of cooperation requires collaboration and empowerment at every level.

We move people and cargo like no other industry; consequently, technology and global warfighter requirements are thrusting the current transportation business practices into another realm. The Air Transportation Enterprise must overcome challenges to meet diverse demands in an ever-changing environment with constrained resources. Therefore, we launched Terminal 2010--an initiative to institutionalize continuous process improvement in the areas of reliability, velocity, and decreased costs. Effectively implemented, this program will increase quality and productivity while reducing waste.

Terminal 2010's focus is on supporting the customer, which means the right support, at the right place, at the right time, and in the right quantities. As such, the objective is to make air transportation services predictable, consistent, and reliable in terms of Time Definite Delivery, which would translate into a reduction in customer wait time and increase reliability and velocity while consuming fewer resources. The strategy for implementing these changes is to apply Lean concepts to supply chain management principles.

Lean concepts are a set of tools used to build customer focus, eliminate waste, simplify and standardize processes, and bring stability to the aerial ports. These concepts are utilized to conduct rapid improvement events at various bases. These events require a team of front line workers, under the guidance of a trained Lean facilitator, that tackle processes to identify and eliminate waste, and improve overall processes.

To date, AMC's Air Transportation Division has conducted Lean training for more than 220 staff, aerial port, and logistics readiness officer personnel. They have also conducted Lean events at 13 bases. Since these events are still in their early stages, no conclusions have been made on the results, but early progress signs have been positive.

As the nation continues to execute the Global War on Terrorism, Terminal 2010 is the air transportation community's medium for creating more efficient warfighting and humanitarian effects for America through rapid and precise global air mobility.