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Show April 14, 1994 Hilltop Times Directives, instructions replace AF regs by TSgt. Gary Pomeroy Air Force News Service - WASHINGTON (AFNS) All Air Force will soon 1,510 regulations be history as the Air Force's initiative to streamline policy nears completion. The project, directed by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill A. McPeak, will replace the regulations with 165 policy directives and roughly 690 instructions, said Brig. Gen. Lee Haines, assistant to the vice chief of staff for policy. And although the total number of pages will drop from 46,000 to about 19,000, Haines stressed that the initiative is not about fewer pages. "At the heart of the project is streamlining virtually every process involved in how we do business," Haines said, adding that the policy directives and instructions will be published on compact disk read-onl- y memory by late spring. The policy directives roughly 550 state the "what" aspects of pages and the instructions about policies the "how" 18,000 pages explain be said should carried out, policies Haines, manager of the project that began 18 months ago. The AFPDs many of which contain as few as two pages were written by the Air Staff and provide the overarching policies in key areas with--i- n and across functional areas, Haines said. "Now you can sit down in an afternoon and read all the overarching policy of the U.S. Air Force," Haines said. The policy directives also contain graphs or charts called "metrics" for measuring progress, that enable years of highly bureaucratic, unnecessarily detailed regulations, often heavily influenced by Congress, auditors, inspectors general and a succession of individual, staff officers, has been a tedious task," Haines said. "It had gotten to the point where you couldn't read a regulation and find the important policies," Haines said. "Not only that, but people had gotten confused about what is policy and what is standard operating procedure." In addition to weeding out the excess, another objective has been converting the documents into "kitchen English, readily understandable to people who use the documents, as well as those who don't speak 'Air Force,' " Haines said. The project, though sanctioned from the top, has been met with some resistance. Haines viewed this as natural, especially considering the broad scope of the change. But he was imoptimistic about the long-terpacts of the project, especially the way 66 At the heart of the project is streamlining virtually every process involved in how we do business. 99 Brig. Gen.. Lee Haines Assistant to the vice chief of staff for policy tions will fit easily on one compact senior Air Force leadership to determine "if their policies are effective and properly implemented," Haines said. The AFIs were created by major commands and field operating agencies to explain "how"-- policies are car- disk. "For unit mobility purposes, taking one disk instead of 6,000 pounds of paper per flying squadron has obvious advantages in saving valuable airlift space and weight," Haines said. hardware alAdditionally, in "We were units. exists many ready under the impression that there were readers only a few hundred CD-ROin the Air Force," Haines said. In fact, there are more than 10,000 readers and now the Air Force is procuring software that will make the electronic medium of choice. ried out. They also contain "procedural guidance mandated by law, health or safety reasons or because it may just make tremendously good sense for everybody in the Air Force to do something the same way," Haines said. "Delegating the writing of the AFIs to the field empowered the people who do the work to decide how best to do CD-RO- M their jobs, supporting Quality Air Force tenets," Haines said. The general pointed out that the directives and instructions will not eliminate Air Force manuals and pamphlets and other types of publications. In fact, plans call for all of them as well. to be added to Putting the policy directives and inis a develop structions on ment that is lucrative in several ways, Haines said. Most notable is that all of the policy directives and instruc CD-RO- M CD-RO- M M user-friend- ly CD-RO- M m it involves people. "Part of the fabric of this is (that) we want to empower people to be The Air Force's movement to is modeled on a similar project within the Defense Logistics Agency. "DLA went paperless in 1992, and the Air Force plans to do the same," Haines said. CD-RO- M The policy review was mentioned in. Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review report, which cited the streamlining initiative as a model for all federal agencies. Getting to this point, however, hasn't been easy, Haines said. "Transforming the debris of 30 CD-RO- on-lin- INSTANT CASH! I J NO UPIO 85 West 3300 So. -S- ALT LAKE CITY 466-707- 0 71 115 West 500 So. -B- OUNTIFUL 292-292- 9 - 713 No. Main -L- AYTON- 546-277- UJa WMm Personal Needs. vacations, Etc. Mi 5633 So. 1900 W. -R- 825-644- 8 CREDITtM) CHECKS BNS7AN7ILY! e HOME OF THE 5 MINUTE LOAN! Vo. r BORROW ac- tive in deciding how the 'what' is going to be done; to be accountable; to be responsible; to feel like what they have to contribute will be accepted, and counts," he said. Robert J. McCormick, the administrative assistant to the secretary of the Air Force, has involved his staff deeply in support of this project, citas an important steping ping stone to establishing an central electronic data base accessible to all Air Force personnel. OY- 5 u W |