501st CSW prepares for new commander’s inspection program

  • Published
  • By Capt. Brian Maguire
  • 501st Combat Support Wing Public Affairs
RAF ALCONBURY, United Kingdom --  Airmen from across the 501st Combat Support Wing gathered at the RAF Alconbury Community Activities Center Jan. 10 to prepare for the implementation of the Commander's Inspection Program under the new Air Force Inspection System.

A team from the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Inspector General's office trained the Airmen on the inspection processes and methodologies so they can perform unit and special inspections on behalf of the wing commander, an integral part of the new CCIP.

"We, as a wing, are one of the leaders among USAFE in the new Air Force construct called CCIP," said Col. Brian Kelly, 501st CSW commander. "One key to the CCIP is to have a cadre of folks internal to our wing that can help us conduct robust and detailed internal inspections of ourselves."

Before Airmen can conduct inspections as part of an IG team, they must receive Air Force Inspection Agency training and be certified by the wing commander.

"It's a great initiative to get everyone involved in the process and communicating here," said Tech. Sgt. Vernon Hampton, 421st Air Base Squadron network operations branch chief. "There are great benefits pushing the training to someone who is the subject matter expert, the people running the checklists and accomplishing the job."

The new CCIP is the wing-level aspect of the Air Force Inspection System, and is the wing commander's tool to ensure the wing is properly organized, trained, equipped and supported to meet mission requirements. The results of the CCIP are reported directly from the wing commander to the major command commander. Instead of creating binders documenting each checklist item, offices use the Management Internal Control Tool, a web-based checklist system that enables offices to upload documents to each checklist item.

"The CCIP puts responsibility and process for compliance inspections back in the hands of wing commanders," said Jim Mogan, 501st CSW inspector general. "This training tells our inspectors how to inspect units and functions. Our team members will not only have certification, they'll have the tools they can use for the job."

The 501st CSW adopted the new inspection process prior to the Consolidated Unit Inspection from USAFE/IG this past August. January started the CCIP with self-inspections occurring across the wing, with local inspection visits scheduled from the Wing Inspection Team in March. This cycle occurs twice a year, providing increased oversight for compliance.

"If our MICT points of contact and our Wing Inspection Team members can identify a problem of noncompliance now, we can begin identifying the root causes and make fixes without having to wait, as in the past, for a big outside team with an even bigger footprint to identify the problem," said Mogan. "By doing so, we increase the economy and efficiency of all our various wing functions, reduce the inspections footprint and increase commander's 'white space' at every level of the organization."

Finding efficiencies is important in a time of constrained budget resources, and the very nature of the 501st CSW enables even more efficiencies when conducting cross-organization checks through the Wing Inspection Team.

"We have in our wing a unique construct that helps us even more in terms of execution, because we are able to cross-utilize the various functional areas from our different air base groups," said Kelly. "We can tap the expertise from one group to inspect the same function at another group, in turn making this a very robust program. The most important thing in this program is having inspectors who can go out and give us quality looks and quality feedback."