News

Mission Control Room a new tool for success

  • Published
  • By 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  The Warner Robins Air Logistics Center's successes in fiscal 2011 - from safety enhancements to on-time delivery of aircraft - are attributable to a number of things, including the fact many are embracing change and working to move the organization closer to its vision of being a "World-Class Center of Acquisition and Sustainment Excellence."

They're also attributable to the center's Mission Control Room, which opened in July.

The room is where center senior leaders meet each week to discuss what their individual teams are doing to help the center achieve its vision of being "A World Class Center of Excellence."

It doesn't have a conference table, computers or telephones. What the room does have is a number of charts on the walls.

The charts track such things as on-time delivery, safety, quality, cost-cutting measures, continuous process improvement initiatives and more. During the weekly meetings, senior leaders have to provide an account of their individual team's progress in those areas.

When the room opened, Maj. Gen. Robert McMahon, center commander, said "The expectation (of the MCR and the meeting format) is that peers will be very hard on peers."

Other important features of the room are two clocks.

Similar to timers NASA used to count down to a shuttle launch, the clocks are fixed on the center's focus areas and are counting down days, hours, minutes and seconds to two different dates.

One is counting down to July 2012, when everyone working at the ALC should be consistently exceeding warfighter and customer expectations.

The other is counting down until July 2014, when the center should lead the Department of Defense in cost management and Continuous Process Improvement should be a way of life in every level of the organization.

They're meant to instill a sense of urgency not only in the senior leaders but the entire workforce that there's not an endless amount of time for the Center to do those things.