Laura Werber

The U.S. Air Force has embarked on a new round of strategic planning under the auspices of its 2015 Strategic Master Plan (SMP). This report represents a general survey of the state of the art in strategy and planning. We found that basic concept and approach of the SMP has promise, but its emphasis on pre-set planning could obstruct, rather than facilitate, its objectives.

The Inspector General of the Air Force (SAF/IG) is leading an Air Force-wide effort to reduce the burden of Air Force inspection activities while also improving the quality of oversight the inspection system provides. In 2010, SAF/IG asked RAND Project AIR FORCE to join in this effort. This report presents primary data RAND collected on the Air Force inspection system and identifies effective inspection and information collection practices that the Air Force might emulate.

The Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform asked RAND to provide an independent analysis of PPBE-like functions in selected countries and federal agencies. In this report-Volume 5 in a seven-volume set of case studies-RAND researchers analyze the defense budgeting processes of five additional allied and partner nations: France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and Sweden.

The Department of Defense (DoD) requires estimates of the number of its workers with disabilities to support its strategic goals and compliance with federal regulation. In this report, the authors seek to estimate the potential demand for assistive technology (AT), given projections of the number of DoD civilian employees--and of injured and wounded service members--with disabilities, as well as anticipated requests and costs for AT.

The UNITE Initiative aims to promote readiness and resilience in the Air Force through events that focus on unit cohesion. The authors describe the results of their evaluation of UNITE and the program's association with unit cohesion, drawing on interviews with UNITE representatives and post-event surveys completed by airmen participants.

Air Force activities to ensure resiliency to adversarial cyber operations are somewhat fractionated, with blurred lines of authority and no overall coordinating mechanisms to ensure that all related activities are identified, tasked, and implemented and act in concert to achieve enterprise objectives. The authors recommend better ways to manage, at the enterprise level, efforts to ensure resiliency of missions to adversarial cyber operations.

This report accomplishes the fiscal year (FY) 2016 assessment of the Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project (AcqDemo) mandated in the National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2011. AcqDemo aims to provide a system that retains, recognizes, and rewards employees for their contributions and supports their personal and professional development.

Since the establishment of the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund (DAWDF), the U.S. Air Force s Director of Acquisition Career Management (DACM) has received funds sufficient to pay for all initiatives that satisfy DAWDF criteria. Recognizing that this will not always be the case, the DACM asked the RAND Corporation to develop a decision framework to help prioritize DAWDF initiatives and ensure that the funds are used effectively."

For 13 programs in the ten states that received Beyond Yellow Ribbon appropriations in fiscal year 2013, RAND researchers used a case study approach to document each program s resources, activities, and intended outcomes; assess whether the programs met their stated goals; identify promising practices and areas for improvement; and suggest ways to improve the effectiveness of the programs as a whole."

This report assesses the FY 2012 reorganization of the Air Force Material Command (AFMC), which was undertaken as one of the initiatives to achieve mandated budget reductions by eliminating civilian manpower positions, thus achieving cost savings. One AFMC challenge was to absorb these cuts with minimal, if any, impact on its assigned missions in part by targeting staff positions.

This RAND study aimed to facilitate the successful reintegration of guard and reserve personnel after deployment. Data collected from families and resource providers offer insights on how well these personnel and their families fare after deployment, the challenges they face during that time frame, the strategies and resources they use to navigate the reintegration phase, and how to ensure that reintegration proceeds as smoothly as possible.