440th Supply Chain Operations Squadron
In today's rapidly changing global landscape, the United States is called upon to sharpen its strategic advantage amidst Great Power Competition. This competitive environment demands an agile and prepared force, equipped to respond to global threats with speed and precision. At the heart of this readiness effort is our approach to managing support equipment, the assets essential to maintaining mission generation and ensuring U.S. forces are fully prepared to fly, fight, and win. To respond to the challenges of GPC, the 440th Supply Chain Operations Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., declared 2024 as the ‘Year of Accelerating Support Equipment Readiness.’
To accelerate, the squadron launched the Equipment Warfighter Support Visit initiative, aimed at validating support equipment requirements. EWSVs are an innovative, multifaceted program integrating training, oversight, and authorization management to accelerate support equipment readiness across the Department of the Air Force. The primary mission of the engagements is to ensure units account for and are equipped to meet their mission requirements. EWSVs are the enterprise solution to drive change across the portfolio.
“Support equipment is the backbone to our ability to fly, fight and win. The 440th SCOS set out in ’24 to ‘Accelerate Support Equipment Readiness’ and delivered … big time!” said Lt. Col. Greg Swendsen, 440th SCOS commander. “We delivered a game-changing, enterprise solution. Within the last 10 months, we were able to assess, validate and resolve over $370M in equipment requirements, while saving the logistics community over 50,000 man-hours through our initiative. With the solution in hand, the squadron is now razor-focused on the pursuit of ‘Relentless Readiness’ in 2025.”
EWSVs: Today’s Enterprise Solution to Accelerate SE Readiness
EWSVs are designed to go beyond traditional oversight. The engagements aim to provide solutions to address equipment gaps impacting mission readiness through validating support equipment requirements, closing critical training gaps, and enhancing data integrity and reliability. This ensures equipment is in the right place, to employ the right capabilities at the right time.
Key components include:
- Reducing Overages and Equipment Gaps: EWSVs focus on assessing equipment overages, shortages, and malpositioned assets, which are assets not authorized with an open requirement elsewhere within the enterprise. Through an analysis of data and face-to-face engagements, EWSVs identify equipment imbalances, redirecting overage assets to areas with a validated and authorized need. This not only ensures efficient asset use but enables continued global power projection.
- Training and Oversight Integration: During EWSVs, the squadron provides stakeholders tailored on-site over-the-shoulder training to empower them with requisite knowledge for maintaining authorization compliance while sharing reports and tools to circumvent or navigate discrepancies. EWSVs also offer valuable enterprise oversight by allowing the squadron to identify and address data/process inconsistencies directly with affected major commands.
- Authorization Management: EWSVs place significant emphasis on managing and validating equipment authorizations. Each asset must have an authorization, aligned with the unit’s tasked mission. Through EWSVs, the squadron reviews and validates authorizations to prevent overages or malpositioned equipment, ensuring every asset serves a definitive operational need.
- Data Integrity and Reliability: Accurate data is the foundation of informed decision-making. EWSVs assess and correct discrepancies within the support equipment Accountable Property System of Record and the Defense Property Accountability System, maintaining data accuracy across platforms. This enhanced data integrity enables leadership decisions at the speed of relevance.
- Accelerated Readiness: By integrating training, oversight, and authorization management, EWSVs are accelerating support equipment readiness. This ensures units are ready to meet the demands of Great Power Competition. The outcome is a reliable, mission-capable force, backed by a solid support equipment framework.
Preparing for the Future Force
“This is just the beginning,” said Equipment Readiness Flight Chief Jason Brown. “The actions we are taking today to drive SE readiness will have ripple effects for years to come.”
Tech. Sgt. Morris Phillips and Staff Sgt. Byron Baker, members of the 440th Supply Chain Operations Squadron, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., conduct an Equipment Warfighter Support Visit at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., Sept. 5, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Photo by Senior Airman Corey Kellen)