AFCEC consults with Scott AFB as TRIRIGA approaches

  • Published
  • By Susan Lawson
  • AFCEC Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  A project management team from the Air Force Civil Engineer Center Operations Directorate, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, recently traveled to Scott Air Force Base, Illinois to perform a detailed on-site visit to assist and train operations flight personnel on the organization and business process changes required to prepare for the NexGenIT Initial Operating Capability, or IOC.

Scott Air Force Base will soon go live with the NexGenIT software, called TRIRIGA, which modernizes the civil engineering career field's approach to managing CE processes.

During the visit, AFCEC's Operations Directorate team discussed current limiting factors, aided the base's civil engineer operations flight team in identifying any shortfalls, commended current business processes and provided TRIRIGA business process training across all CE Operations functional areas.

"The primary goal was to gain knowledge and vital data points for TRIRIGA operations flight preparation, prior to IOC," said Gary Gentz, preventive maintenance program manager for the AFCEC Operations Maintenance Division.

"This is crucial to program development at Scott Air Force Base and helped refine the approach the career field will use to facilitate enterprise wide application throughout the Air Force. Having the understanding of the business process configuration at base-level in a robust operation such as Scott Air Force Base is critical to providing pre-and post-deployment support of TRIRIGA across the enterprise.

"As the Air Force quickly embarks on TRIRIGA IOC at Scott Air Force Base and beyond, it is crucial to support the roll out with training on all business process changes and requirements to the maximum extent possible. The CE operations team at Scott is a tremendous example of an organization that has embraced Program Action Directive 12-03 transformation requirements, employed the right personnel in the right places, and continues to march down the highway towards success for TRIRIGA IOC," Gentz said.

Program reviews and in-depth overview training were provided within work management, preventive maintenance, material control, service contract and shop management functional areas. These functional training actions tied the entire program together for ease of understanding for all personnel. Major milestones to be achieved prior to IOC were reviewed and lessons learned from previous on-site visits were thoroughly discussed.

Throughout the site visit, the team fielded questions from the squadron commander and his deputy, operations flight leadership, the squadron's requirements and optimization section and shop chiefs working on TRIRIGA implementation. The group was briefed on the importance of organizational transformation requirements easing the transition pre-, during and post-IOC.

One advantage to the implementation of the TRIRIGA platform is the ability to better inform and manage work requirements with a focus on preventive maintenance.

"We provide guidance to the field and suggest what should be included in policy," said Maj. Brian Anderson, chief of the operations maintenance division at AFCEC.

The TRIRIGA application supports the CE career field's transformation and new work processes. 

"The TRIRIGA platform supports Work Management, Material Control and Preventive Maintenance processes amongst others," said Capt Tanner Smith, acting division chief of AFCEC's Operations Maintenance Division. "TRIRIGA will reinforce the Asset Management approach across the CE enterprise helping us to more efficiently maintain and operate Air Force infrastructure. Asset Management is a business process benchmarked from the private sector and uses a long-term, system-focused approach to maintaining and operating built and natural infrastructure. The transition from legacy IT systems is not without challenges, however, and requires a significant investment of time and manpower. Operations flights should utilize the time they have until TRIRIGA deployment to refine and solidify their transformed business processes to enable a much smoother transition to the TRIRIGA Work Management system."

The AFCEC team is working towards a uniform approach to the way TRIRIGA is used to standardize business process throughout the service.

"Converting from legacy IT systems to Preventive Maintenance Task Lists, or PMTLs, is not easy," Anderson said. "It will require much more work to finalize in its entirety. In the end, we are building an "enterprise-level" program propelled within TRIRIGA to exacting detail on each asset."

As a result of information gathered during the visit, the AFCEC team will be able to refine their training processes and materials for operations flights across the Air Force.

"The visit to Scott Air Force Base will result in refinement of training products that will be pushed to Operations Flights to aid implementation of TRIRIGA," said Gentz.

To learn more about the AFCEC Operations Maintenance Division or NexGenIT, contact the AFCEC Reach Back Center at afcec.rbc@us.af.mil or 850-283-6995.