Personnel initiative set to make transactions more convenient Published Feb. 15, 2006 By Ron Scharven Air Force Materiel Command Public Affairs WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- A new initiative, the Personnel Services Delivery Transformation, will soon change the way the Air Force does military personnel business. PSD will use technology to put routine personnel transactions into the hands of Airmen using Web base, fax, phone, Contact Centers and even regular mail. "We have historically provided personnel services through face-to-face contact, and we do it well," said Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, deputy chief of staff, personnel. "In the future, PSD will provide a new way of doing business ... one that will become more efficient by moving transactional work to the Web or Contact Centers." Two briefing teams from the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph AFB, Texas, are going to each major command. During two days of briefings, the teams are training military personnel specialists from each MAJCOM base on the changes that will affect active-duty Airmen beginning March 31. Lt. Col. Brenda Roberts, chief of field activities current ops at AFPC, and chief of one of the four-person "Train the Trainer Road Shows," headed the team visiting Air Force Materiel Command Feb. 9 and 10. "We're training the attendees so they can go back to their home base and train all members of their base populous, including senior leaders, other military personnel specialists and every Airman on PSD. PSD will be extremely important to each and every Airman and civilian working for the Air Force," Col. Roberts said. "Between now and 2010, we will lose 1,500 slots from military personnel facilities." PSD is broken down into seven spirals between March 31, 2006 and December 2007. However, a spiral won't be released to the field if it has a flaw that hasn't been worked out. AFPC has created a Contact Center manned by highly-trained personnel specialists and are available by phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. PSD will shorten the usual time it takes to complete a process at the MPF. This use of existing technology will eliminate the loss of duty time by Airmen traveling to and from the MPF. Several processes such as retraining and retirements, currently worked by the base MPF, will be self-initiated via the Web and centrally managed and processed at the AFPC Contact Center in San Antonio, Texas. According to Col. Michael Maloney, director of personnel services at AFPC, the training is the first step in changing the way personnel transactions are accomplished. The personnel specialists are trained first to give them the opportunity to inform their customers of the coming changes. Following the two days of briefings at AFMC, the "Train the Trainer Road Show" heads to Florida to the Air Force Special Operations Command followed by Air Education and Training Command and finally to the United States Air Forces Europe. PSD gives Airmen convenient and secure access to AFPC and avoids waiting in lines and allows them to fit their personnel business into their own schedule.