Fiscal Year 2004 Research Agenda

Manpower, Personnel, and Training Program

Strategic Assessments Regarding the Active, Reserve, Civilian, and Contractor Mix

This project will provide support for structural reviews such as Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC), Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the Secretary of Defense’s recent call for active/reserve rebalancing, and continuing refinements and adjustments of the Air and Space Expeditionary Force (AEF) framework. PAF will tailor and exploit a comprehensive suite of existing models and databases to help identify and assess manpower and personnel implications of structural, support, and basing options. Specific tasks will include evaluating possible changes in the active/reserve mix, peacetime or wartime deployment workloads and locations, CONUS and forward basing, and policies governing tour lengths and conditions (Temporary Duty [TDY] vs. Permanent Change of Station [PCS]), for example, or modifying representations of personnel flows to accommodate additional ways for people to move among the components.

Sponsors: AF/XP, AF/DP
Project Leaders: Craig Moore, Al Robbert

 

Rated Force Utilization and Development

This project will involve two closely related tasks: First, roughly paralleling earlier work in which PAF identified absorption-related problems in developing and sustaining fighter force inventories, PAF will assess these issues for bomber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), mobility, and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)/unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) aircrew inventories. Second, PAF will adapt and apply the methods developed in an FY02/FY03 study of space/missile officer career paths to segments of the rated officer force, providing functional and personnel managers in AF/XO, AF/DP, and AFPC a basis for executing responsibilities currently being identified under the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s (CSAF’s) envisioned transformation of officer force development. This will include identifying the education, training, and experiences needed for groups of rated jobs (the demand), describing officers’ actual backgrounds (the supply), assessing demand/supply gaps, and recommending flows and career paths that would better match the supply and demand.

Sponsor: AF/XO
Project Leaders: Bill Taylor, Larry Hanse

 

Integrated Executive Force Planning

PAF will assist the Air Force Senior Leader Management Office (AFSLMO) in its continuing, groundbreaking effort to establish, extend, and refine integrated, requirements-based military and civilian senior leader planning, development, and management. Using expected changes in Air Force operating and business environments as a basis, PAF will forecast changes in the required mix of Air Force senior leader competencies. PAF and AFSLMO will develop a database of requirements for GS-15 jobs and extend the integrated executive analysis scope to include the O-6 and GS-15 portions of the executive workforce. Similar modeling of executive occupational competency requirements will be undertaken for Air Force Reserve general officer positions. Exploratory work will be undertaken regarding E-9 competency requirements. PAF will assist the AFSLMO Force Development Division in developing processes and methodologies for developing future Air Force senior leaders, including both occupational and enduring competencies. PAF will also explore and prototype additional elements of an executive decision support system. In addition to satisfying Air Force needs, this project has and will continue to generate methodological advances that are then rapidly adopted by the other services.

Sponsor: AFSLMO
Project Leaders: Steve Drezner, John Boon

 

Maintaining the Manpower/PERSTEMPO Balance

This project will continue efforts begun in FY03 to exploit RAND’s unique ability to understand and manipulate multiple, interacting peacetime and wartime manpower requirements data files. Specific tasks will include a focus on A-76 processes and impacts, assistance to AF/DPM in developing an approach for integrating wartime and peacetime manpower requirements, and a possible smaller-scale reiteration of a total force assessment.

Sponsor: AF/DP
Project Leader: Ray Conley

 

Education and Training Pipeline Analysis

The goal of this project is to enhance the Air Education and Training Command’s (AETC’s) ability to respond rapidly to other Major Commands’ (MAJCOMs’) and functional managers’ changing training needs. Extending work began in FY03, PAF will complete development of an end-to-end training pipeline model and apply it and a related schoolhouse-level model to assess the technical training pipeline’s time-phased costs and capacities for altering the production of trainees in specific Air Force Specialty Codes (AFSCs), both routinely and under surge conditions. When completed, the models will be used to analyze policy questions such as banding, smoothflow, the proper balance between school and unit training, and the effects of a zero Students Awaiting Training Status (SATS) policy on recruiting, throughput, or training quality. Finally, PAF will recommend changes in policies, procedures, and/or resources to accelerate/augment changes in training throughput.

Sponsor: AETC/CV
Project Leader: Tom Manacapilli

 

Flying Training 2020

The Air Education and Training Command (AETC) must soon decide whether to replace the T-38 and whether and how to extend the life of the T-1. Continuing with two such different aircraft would commit the command to its current training concepts and pipeline templates. Before committing to this course of action, AETC wants to consider alternative training frameworks that might prove more effective, less costly, or both. Future flying training pipelines should a) give students the skills essential to becoming experienced military aircrews who can meet Air Force mission needs throughout the spectrum of air and space operations; and b) give the Air Force flexibility to adjust to evolving mission requirements and force structure. This project will identify skill sets required for advanced USAF aircraft (including the F-22, F-35, and C-17), determine what skills should be developed in Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT), and assess the suitability of current UPT aircraft to provide those skills. This will inform the decision to replace the T-38C and will also provide insight into whether or not future UPT approaches should use one or more aircraft during training.

Sponsor: AETC/CC
Project Leader: John Ausink

 

Acquisition and Logistics Workforce Requirements

Due to impending retirements, the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) must replace a large share of its civilian workforce over the next decade. The task of shaping the emerging workforce is hampered, however, because the mix of skills that may be needed to meet future needs has not been carefully anticipated. This project will complete the FY03 effort to develop and apply a process to identify quantitatively the characteristics and skills desired in the Air Force Mobility Command’s (AFMC’s) future workforce, beginning with the Production Support Mission Area (PSMA). This project will: 1) Identify workforce characteristics and skills of interest; 2) Identify strategic intent and key elements of change that may affect the product mix and the development/production processes; 3) Assess the probabilities, directions, and broad magnitudes of potential changes on PSMA workload and practices; 4) Determine each change’s implications for workforce size and mix, considering some changes in combination; and 5) Quantify the mix of skills needed in the future PSMA workforce.

Sponsor: AFMC/CD
Project Leader: Georges Vernez

 

Estimating Future AFMC Manpower Requirements

Due to an urgent mid-year request from the Air Force to conduct another study, this study was deferred. This project was to follow the FY03–FY04 effort entitled “Acquisition and Logistics Workforce Requirements. Its purpose was to address the Air Force Materiel Command’s (AFMC’s) continuing concern that the results it obtained from efforts to predict future workforce requirements do not sufficiently reflect 1) strategic shifts in the mix of Air Force capabilities that acquisition systems will be expected to enable and support or 2) anticipated changes in the business processes for acquiring and sustaining systems. To provide a better assessment of workforce requirements, PAF was to extend its prototype effort to identify the workforce characteristics of interest, identify key elements of change, assess the probability and expected timeline of each element of change, determine the probable impact of each change on future workforce characteristics, and quantify the distribution of characteristics desired in the future workforce.

Sponsor: AFMC/DP
Project Leader: Georges Vernez

 

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