An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

AMC's comm warriors are lead in technology innovation

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Stephenie Wade
  • Headquarters Air Mobility Command Public Affairs
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. --  Outlook 10, Lexmark printers, computer software these are all programs that work because of a section of personnel who prefer to work behind the scenes and put the customer first.

Air Mobility Command's Communication Directorate, A6, leads the way for innovation and creating benchmarks within the Air Force.

One of the directorate's missions is to provide services and policy for managing information as a strategic resource.

In 2014, AMC decided to standardize printing across the command and funded 1,284 Lexmark multifunction devices, eliminating standalone scanners and printers and creating a new Air Force benchmark.

It was during this process that A6 also discovered more capabilities and identified two new initiative to include secure print services, which the command will know as AMC SmartPrint.

"AMC SmartPrint will revolutionize how printing is done across the command," said Robert Howell, AMC programming and budget chief. "This idea will connect the printers directly to the servers.That way, when someone wants to print, they can pick up their document from any printer linked to the server, all by using thier common access card."

When the individual arrives at the printer of their choice, they will look at what is in the queue under their name, select it and print. The queue will hold documents for 72 hours.

AMC SmartPrint will save a large amount of paper and secure personal information. It will also save time by eliminating touch maintenance, because the communications squadron will be able to install drivers via the server remotely instead of going to each individual printer.

On April 18, the smart print software will be released to the 375th Communications Group at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, for a six-month trial, said Howell.

Another capability AMC plans to look into in FY17 is getting software approved that will manage toner levels from an enterprise level. Manage to Print Services has a program called "just in time toner," and it tracks toner and paper usage. It will allow the printer to order toner when it recognizes it is getting low and have it delivered to the customer's door instead of stockpiling toner that could potentially never be used.

Another one of A6's roles is to provide support for all AMC bases' network infrastructure and command and control systems for the 618th Air Operations Center.

"In the past several months, A6 has merged functions to create a MAF/NAF cyber coordination center," said Col. Donald Grannan, A6 director. "The purpose of this is to look at the vulnerbilites and threats across all the AMC networks to get a picture of the health of our networks using a service-oriented architecture (SOA)."

The directorate provides a platform and infrastructure allowing AMC users to develop application based software. A lot of people want software programs created, however the software ideas could have a common purpose. SOAs outline the rules for those who want to add an application and provide the code already in the system using a program AMC calls Mobility Enterprise Information Service 4.0, which will be released sometime this year.

"This service will allow a smaller, leaner application to use the same powerful services the big applications use but couldn't in the past because of cost," said Grannan  "It's innovative because we will be able to be more agile to accomodate changes and be able to get the code out faster. New information technology systems and acquisitions will be faster, because we don't have to redesign the whole infrastructure foundation."

An example would be codeless application.

"In the Air Operations Center the user-defined operational picture wouldn't have been possible without an SOA," said Ward Walker, A6 chief technology officer . "All the data collected communicates because there is a a way to see data, how we use it and how we put it together. It's all located and collected from the same river of data or a common authoritative source for data.  It's not about the program, it's about the data, and we need to do better at enterprise data management."

Communications squadrons assigned to AMC will be better prepared to provide this service, thanks to another Air Force lead intiative called Comm Squadron Next, a restructuring of base communications squadrons. The focus will be for comm squadrons to shift more from an information technology to a mission assurance focus.Traditionally, the communications squadron's role was to provide support for any IT device or service used for communication, like radios, giant voice, etc. Comm Squadron Next will help mobility Airmen understand the process for their wing operations to be successful, and they will speak the same langauge, said Grannan.

To prepare for this shift, AMC A6 is paying for Air Education and Training Command instructors to travel to McConnell and Scott AFB, to provide functional mission assurance training. This course will train Airmen on how to analyze, assure and defend their base's mission, which varies depending on the base. For example, McConnell's communication Airmen's primary focus will soon be the KC-46 weapons system.

"Historically, the base comm squadron is barely involved in the aircraft communications," said Ward.  "In the future, we will look at what needs to be done so the aircraft can fly and operate securely. If we see that an adversary has activity on the network, we would be able to look at the activity and correlate to places where the activity may be going to readjust."

Not only does this directorate lead the way in innovation, it also has a commitment to securing the command's information and in recent years won awards for leading the Air Force and Department of Defense in cyberspace operations and support.

"We are mobility Airmen who leverage cyberspace operations that understand fully how to help get the job done," said Ward. "If you are pushing pallets on the ramps, we [communications Airmen] stand by to figure out how can we do that smarter using cyberspace operations."

He said someday that might mean automated pallet jacks running around warehouses, like how Amazon works, where the rack comes to the user. Or that might mean the ability to do Microsoft holographic training so members can walk through an aircraft real-time. All of this is possible and AMC communications Airmen are the key innovating mobility practices that will save the Air Force money and resources in the future.