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Posted Thursday, May 10, 2007
The USAF’s Directorate of Transformation (AF/A4I), Transformation and Integration Branch (AF/A4ID) of the Air Force’s Logistics Installations, and Mission Support Directorate (AF/A4) and the Air Force Institute of Technology's School of Systems and Logistics (LS) Sustainment Curriculum Portfolio (SCP) management team presented the SCP registry data base program at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces / National Defense University’s (ICAF/NDU) DoD Joint Logistics Educator’s Day conducted at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., on 11 January 2007.
The Director of Transformation, Grover Dunn (AF/A4I), was represented by Maj. Mike Nigro (AF/A4ID), with Walter Chin, Director of Business Operations and Management at AFIT/LS and Kevin A. Dewey, Lead/Senior Logistician at PE Systems, Inc. assisting. The briefing team presented the purpose, design and capabilities of the SCP.
The purpose of the DoD Joint Logistics Educator’s Day conference was to begin the formation of a community of practice (CoP) of logistics educators and a community of interest (CoI) of logistics practitioners to share a common vision for the future of joint logistics professional career development.
The SCP provides career logisticians a tool for researching and locating educational resources as well as allowing senior leadership the opportunity to select and tailor curricula for certification, credentialing, and career path mapping. Aligned with the AFSO21 Vision and following the same flight path with other eLog21 initiatives, the SCP is representative of the leanest, most efficient form of education and training resource management. Until now, there has not been a single, definitive source of information management technology that collects, stores, and identifies all of the AF sustainment educational and training resources available to the logistics community.
Since the inception of the portfolio registry, it has been populated with more than 2400 sustainment related courses by Air Force units. The Defense Acquisition University and the Army Logistics Management College have also provided sustainment courses from their respective catalogues, providing a joint perspective. Analysts, in conjunction with AF subject matter experts, are currently analyzing course descriptions, content, and curricula for areas of duplication and identification of sustainment education and training gaps. Through this analysis effort, senior leadership will be able to evaluate existing courses and propose removal or consolidation of duplicate sustainment courses as well as the development of new ones. Through the recapitalization of resources, vast savings will be realized in the logistics and sustainment education arena.
The Joint Logistics Educator’s conference initiated the ground work for developing a partnership between DoD joint logistics educators and practitioners by discussing the expectations educators have of practitioners as well as what the practitioners have of educators.
As a result of the presentation by Maj. Nigro, Chin and Dewey, the conference attendees agreed that building a catalog of joint logistics courses or a joint logistics and sustainment education and training portfolio is necessary and that the Air Force Institute of Technology's School of Systems and Logistics Sustainment Curriculum Portfolio could serve as a model for a joint logistics education portfolio repository.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force, Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.
(Contributing Article by Walter Chin, Director, Business Operations and Management, and SCP Program Manager (AFIT/LS), and Kevin Dewey, Lead/Senior Logistician, PESystems, Inc.)