Towards a Seamless Mobility System: The C-130 and Air Force Reorganization

摘要

A recent issue of 'Fortune' features an article entitled 'Why Companies Fail.' One of the questions it poses is, 'Why do successful organizations, which once could do no wrong, suddenly begin to lose their way' In answering that question, experts emphasize that one of the 'key chasms' to avoid is 'a tendency on the part of management to diversify into fields far from the organization's essential core.' While there is no danger of our 'company' failing, recent Air Force restructuring included at least one major decision that strays from this sound advice. The transfer in 1993 of C-130s from Air Mobility Command (AMC) to Air Combat Command (ACC) and the unified commanders is both a loss of a core business for AMC and a diversion into a field far from the 'organization's essential core.' Instead, the business plan for the Air Force reorganization should have left the C-130s close to the 'organization's essential core' (i.e., AMC's airlift mission) and adjusted an already proven product to the changing environment. It's time to rethink this issue. The core restructuring of the post-cold-war Air Force followed a simple binary logic: did forces belong to the 'global reach' or 'global power' portion of the Air Force vision statement. Forces previously associated with conducting violent aerial warfare were generally considered part of global power and placed in ACC, while airlift and tanker forces that contributed to the maturing mobility strategy of global reach were assigned to AMC. Most major weapon systems were easily and naturally classified and placed. But one weapon system - - the C-130 -- was not.