WR-ALC plans for summer transition Published April 12, 2012 By Jenny Gordon 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- Planning continues for the Air Force Materiel Command-wide restructure which will reduce the number of air logistics centers from 12 to five. The restructure was announced in November, with plans for the early stages of implementation to reach initial operational capability later this year. The five-center restructure includes an Air Force Sustainment Center at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. which will consolidate the oversight of maintenance and supply missions now performed by the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center and 78th Air Base Wing at Robins. Also falling under the AFSC will be the Oklahoma City ALC, and 72nd Air Base, 448th Supply Chain Management and 635th Supply Chain Operations wings at Tinker; and Ogden ALC and 75th Air Base Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Each air depot location will also be renamed the Warner Robins, Oklahoma City and Ogden Air Logistics Complexes. The 402nd Maintenance Wing at Robins will be redesignated to be the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex. The new ALC will be led by a one-star general, to be named at a later date. Some of the most significant changes, following the June retirement of Maj. Gen. Robert McMahon, center commander, will be command staff changes, whose responsibilities will be passed to other organizations on base. "In some small way, everyone will be impacted by the change, whether it's an organizational name change, change in office location, or change in your reporting chain-of-command," said Col. Timothy Nelson, who has worked with AFMC regarding the transition. Nelson, 78th ABW Communications Directorate director, is also leading an information technology sub-team which is creating an IT organization for the AFSC to perform policy and oversight roles. He's also tasked with identifying redundancies in IT systems and infrastructure. For example, Robins and Tinker use different software systems. "We're analyzing 973 software systems to determine what we can eliminate or combine," he said. That includes systems from wings which will fall under the new sustainment center. "Robins has probably made the most progress in consolidating and streamlining. We're using a lot of our processes here, and will migrate those to the other wings," he added. "All in all, Robins is in excellent shape to make all these transitions, and the reason is due to the leadership of wing commanders and senior leaders that we have in place." The main ideas that will be worked on during the next few months include consolidation, standardization and eliminating redundancies. In practical terms, jobs won't change, Nelson said. Responsibilities will change and reporting changes will occur once stand-ups occur in. As part of AFMC's five-center transition, including the new AFSC at Tinker, the command's acquisition mission will be led by a new Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Test missions will also be consolidated under a new Air Force Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.; the Air Force Research Laboratory, headquartered at Wright-Patterson, will continue in its present role; and AFMC's nuclear support mission will continue to be led by the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The new AFLCMC will include all program executive offices and former Aerospace Sustainment Directorate program offices. Once the Robins ASD stands down, respective divisions will each report to an established directorate in various locations. "Basically, below that very top-level and changes in staff, nothing will change for most people," explained Wendy Johnston, center Plans and Programs director, who is handling the overall transition at Robins. "The LCMC below division level, at the ASDs, won't experience many differences in day-to-day operations, except for who the division reports to." For example, the C-5, C-17 and Tactical Air divisions will report to a Mobility Directorate, the F-15 division will report to a Fighters/Bombers Directorate, and C2ISR and JSTARS program offices will report to a Battle Management Directorate. "The goal is to streamline everything so offices have direct reporting to their bosses. It should make communication better," said Nelson. According to AFMC, exact dates for stand-ups will not occur until after Congressional-mandated reports are completed, and AFMC's formal organizational change request is approved by Headquarters Air Force. Key leadership positions recently included the March 26 Senate confirmation of Lt. Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger, who will become the next AFMC commander. Lt. Gen. C.D. Moore II was also confirmed as commander of the new AFLCMC.