Office of Readiness open for business Published May 19, 2008 By Staff Sgt. Samuel King Jr. 53d Wing Public Affairs EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Nearly two months after its inception, the 53d Wing Office of Readiness is in high gear to assist wing personnel needs in manpower, contracting, personnel, AEF management and total force integration. This initiative sprang from the Presidential Budget Decision 720 that forced the 53d Wing to reduce its military staff by 42 percent. "It was either shut down or merge to survive," said John Garnett, OR chief. "However, once we started putting the pieces together, we realized what an opportunity we had to improve our services to the customers." Like any new equipment or software the 53d Wing receives, the Readiness Office needs to be tested. The OR development and its processes will pass through all four of the 53d Wing's test phases to ensure mission capability and efficiency. Mr. Garnett explained how inprocessing will undergo the testing phases. "Each customer currently goes through a different in-processing orientation," he said. "We have established the hypothesis that one process can support in-processing for all categories of personnel. The developmental test phase has us developing new and improved methods to streamline the process. The operational test has us taking the new process and implementing with older, more recognized methods. We work out any minor bugs and move on to follow-on testing where we push the process to its limits. Once the new process is maximized, we move to force development testing to sustain and continue to improve the process." This consolidation means one-stop shopping for 53d employees. "Any of the 2,000 employees can call one phone number or send an email and receive support in six career areas from manpower, personnel, contracting, AEF management or total force integration," said Mr. Garnett. The number one priority for OR is to reduce processing time for the human resources aspect of the military, according to Mr. Garnett. To do that, the Readiness Office will take the process of filing formal requests off of squadron and group personnel. By leaving the HR processes to the experts, the new method could potentially reduce processing time by ten personnel, according to Mr. Garnett. As with many aspects of the wing, things are done a little differently at the 53d. The Readiness Office has kept that going with its consolidation. The original Air Force test for the upcoming Force Support Squadrons (formerly mission support) has manpower and personnel under one commander but still separate entities. The 53d took that one step further by "interlacing" all of the human resources offices. Mr. Garnett said it just makes sense for this unique wing. "This might not be the model for the Air Force, as most wing's have their units aligned at their parent location," said Mr. Garnett. "However, for those one-of-a-kind wings like the 53d, it may be the only way to ensure dedicated support to our personnel."