PSD going AF wide

  • Published
  • By Capt. Matthew Dawson
  • 56th Mission Support Squadron
Personnel Services Delivery, is the Air Force's vision of how all manpower and personnel business is conducted. It is an Air Force-wide personnel and manpower program designed to reengineer and streamline manpower and personnel processes, and the organizations.

Personnel Services Delivery ensures delivery of the right people, at the right place, at the right time. It will improve operational efficiency, effectiveness and customer satisfaction and enable the most effective use of Air Force resources, while improving the accuracy and availability of personnel information.

The Air Force's goal with PSD is to provide better customer service with fewer people. In essence, PSD will influence how personnel services are delivered to all "Airmen" -- active duty, Reserve, guard, civilian, as well as family members and retirees -- 24- hours a day, seven days a week.

Despite all the press the Air Force PSD transformation process has received over the past year, one of the most commonly asked questions regarding this effort is, "Why are we changing the way we've always done business?" To that the answer is simple -- a presidential mandate to achieve operational efficiencies, and Secretary of Defense mandate that we shift our manpower resources to a warfighting capability, "from bureaucracy to battlefield."

By now we have all heard of the impending cuts the Air Force faces as a result of Program Budget Decision 720, which will cut our overall Air Force end strength by roughly 40,000. In an effort to meet these mandates and challenges, the Air Force implemented Smart Operations 21. AFSO 21 is a process that employs industry proven techniques to help improve and streamline processes, eliminate waste, while reducing manpower and saving valuable Air Force resources. The good news is that the Air Force Manpower and Personnel community was already out front of AFSO 21. Personnel Services Delivery transformation will allow the Manpower and Personnel community to meet the rapidly changing needs of the Air Force, while improving the efficiency, effectiveness, accuracy and availability of manpower and personnel related processes. The hardest thing associated with any change is actually overcoming the
reluctance to change itself.

Change, while sometimes difficult to adjust to, is inevitable. The biggest change associated with PSD is helping people understand that they will eventually be able to accomplish most all of their personnel related actions without having to leave the workcenter. Personnel Services Delivery will enable Airmen to accomplish personnel-related actions from the comfort of their desk, with the Commander's Support Staff , or with the Air Force Contact Center directly. If you stop to think about it, you've already made that transition in many aspects of your every day Air Force way of life -- LeaveWeb, MyPay, Defense Travel System, you can even schedule medical appointments on-line now. More importantly, stop to think about how technology has changed your personal life -- banking online, buying travel tickets on-line, filing your taxes on-line, even selling your unwanted "stuff" on-line. The Air Force is rapidly changing and the technology is here to help facilitate the change.

Since the implementation of PSD, several personnel processes have already made the transition and are already, in whole or part, accomplished on-line. Processes include accessions, basic changes to military records, evaluation appeals, updating duty history, updating enlisted assignment dream sheets, submitting retraining applications and submitting retirement applications. Even a portion of the assignments process has gone to virtual outprocessing which is mandatory for all personnel Air Force-wide. All of these actions are available to Air Force members by logging on to the Air Force Portal, navigating to the virtual Military Personnel Flight, and completing the required transaction.

Several new PSD processes will roll out between now and 2011, such as unit personnel record group's converting to e-records. Members will be able to view their personnel record on-line and both the selective re-enlistment and career job reservation programs will be automated. Specific types of service medals will automatically update in a member's record.

The assignments process will also transfer. Air Force Personnel Command will send notifications directly to the member's unit, members will complete all actions on-line, and then final outprocess from the CSS instead of the MPF. Responsibility for completing retirement and separation actions will transfer from the MPF to the CSS's and formal training will flow directly to the CSS versus the MPF. While the groundwork for implementing these processes is already underway, the exact date and particulars for many of them are still forthcoming.

With PSD, these same transactions will be processed on-line, through the CSS, or directly with the Air Force Contact Center.

The bottom line is members are not doing more than in the past, just doing it differently, and in many ways better. The thing to remember is that the member is the master of own destiny, and PSD is the Air Force initiative that will empower and provide the Airman with better service.

To learn more about the Air Force Personnel Services Delivery transformation process, go to www.afpc.randolph.af.mil and select "Personnel Services Delivery" in the Quick Links section; or you can log on to the Air Force Portal at https://www.my.af.mil, select Life & Career, then select Career from the drop-down list.