BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Civilian computer programmers assigned to HQ Air Reserve Personnel Center, Buckley AFB, Colo., introduced a new process to reduce the administrative burden of generating evaluations across the Air Force.
David Kent and Charles Mayfield, programmers from the Directorate of Future Operations and Integration (DPX), designed the new process which scans data points across multiple systems to generate an evaluation before submitting it to the member’s unit.
“The old way of generating evaluations required several edits for each rank when preparing for the static close out dates (SCOD),” Kent said. “This was a very labor intensive process and if one section was input incorrectly, it could result in thousands of inaccurate evaluations being sent to the field.”
Kent and Mayfield knew there had to be a more efficient way to generate evaluations. So they developed programming code to scan the entire Air Force population based on the SCOD dates, create an evaluation record for each individual and auto-populate fields such as rank and number of days under supervision. Once all fields are populated, the system will push each evaluation to the commander’s support staff for routing.
Earlier this month, DPX put their new system into practice and successfully generated 9,704 Senior Master Sergeant evaluations before releasing them to servicing agencies around the globe.
According to Kent, most of the effects of this upgrade will be seen internally by DPX before the evaluation arrives at the CSS, but the benefits are wide-ranging.
“The MPF or CSS won’t notice any changes in the evaluations they receive but they will be able to notice the evaluations arriving on time, every time. Even on weekends and holidays,” Kent said. “This will also allow raters, commanders, and personnelists to focus on their mission and no longer have to sign and resubmit an evaluation due to these types of clerical errors.”
This new system is the latest in a number of innovative applications DPX has introduced in the last 18 months. The full team of computer configuration specialists, including Kent and Mayfield, created a program last year to scan incoming evaluations for errors which showed immediate results by reducing the processing time at HQ ARPC.
“The ARPC configuration specialists are the premier programmers of the Air Force,” stated Col Charlan Poirson, Director of Future Operations and Integration. “The combination of these amazing specialists with the outstanding requirements analysts and innovative Current Ops personnel, resulted in tremendous advancements on behalf of all current RegAF, Guard, and Reserve members, as well as all Air Force retirees. The men and women of Team DPX tackle seemingly impossible challenges head-on and find a way to make life better for all Airmen, everytime!”
DPX has also been involved in standardizing the retirement application process and creating a virtual status bar to track retirement orders. This tool, found on myPers, allows applicants to see where their retirement order is in the process as it flows from HQ ARPC to Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS).
“The virtual status bar was created to meet the needs of our customers by providing an element of transparency to the process,” said Mr. Rob Poe, Retirement section supervisor at HQ ARPC. “The work of the programmers within DPX was vital to the success of this initiative.”
Many personnel actions such as retirements, are once-in-a-career type of events that used to be done with ink and paper, folders and file cabinets. Today personnel actions are completed via automated systems thanks to DPX; a small group of professionals creating innovative solutions to effectively and efficiently serve all Airmen—past, present, and future.