A Task-Based Approach to Analyzing Processes

Abstract : As much of corporate America has embraced business process reengineering, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 and the Department of Defense Corporate Information Management Initiative have provided the impetus for DoD to embrace the concept. DoD, and the Air Force in particular, have the advantage of being able to use a scientifically defendable and commonly used source of information, the occupational analysis data and analysis technologies already in development, to aid in their reengineering efforts. The Air Force occupational analysis program focuses on identifying discrete tasks which are then clustered into work units to be performed by specialists. The Occupational Measurement Squadron at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, maintains occupational data associated with each of the 200+ 5 digit Air Force Specialties or career fields. Technologies currently under development by the Air Force, such as the Training Impact Decision System (TIDES) and Job Structuring Technology (JST), can be used to analyze the work units created from groupings of discrete tasks. Changes to or the creation of new groupings of tasks could be proposed and the results of the overall process examined, but these technologies could also be used to restructure entire specialties or career fields, or potentially even the entire career field system of the Air Force. Using these developing technologies, along with the occupational analysis data, could provide the Air Force and DoD with a tool for analyzing and seeing the potential effects of proposed process reengineering efforts.