Improve the Air Force with AFSO process Published Feb. 11, 2015 By Senior Airman Jake Eckhardt 375th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- The Air Force recently changed the name of its process improvement program from AFSO21 to just AFSO, which stands for Air Force Smart Operations. One tool of AFSO involves using the eight-step problem solving model, something the wing plans to train everyone on during the year. Master Sgt. Jennifer Lyon, 375th Air Mobility Wing AFSO Process Manager said, "AFSO provides us with a lens to see into our processes and see how we can improve them instead of assuming that the way we've always done them is the best way." The eight steps in order are to first clarify and validate the problem, followed by breaking down the problem/identifying performance gaps, setting improvement targets, determining root causes, developing countermeasures, seeing countermeasures through, confirming results and process, and finally standardizing the successful process. "The idea behind it is that it is a combination of civilian business practices that are lean and Six-Sigma. This is used to find and mitigate waste in processes," she said. The process is a systematic approach to continuous process improvement that has proven to provide evidence-based results, which provides an opportunity to save time and money while increasing efficiency. The goal is to get as many people as possible in the mindset of continuous process improvement. Nick Cardozo, 375th Medical Group AFSO Representative, said, "If everyone were trained on AFSO, we would be fostering an 'ever-improving' culture. People across the board would be looking for ways to make what they do every day better. That kind of awareness leads people to be able to spot challenges that might crop up in what they do day-to-day and adapt quicker to those challenges, hopefully before it becomes a major problem."