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Simple scanner helps 75th LRS speed up deployment processing

  • Published
  • By Cynthia Griggs
  • 75th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

Deploying Airmen out the door involves a lot of paperwork, cargo and equipment and the 75th Logistics Readiness Squadron’s is ready to support the movement of it all successfully and efficiently.

In a continued effort to improve their processes, the squadron’s Individual Protective Equipment Flight started scanning Airmen’s gas masks into the Integrated Logistics System-Supply (ILS-S) software installed on Wi-Fi-enabled tablets.  

The gas masks have a QR-code that the scanner reads and populates the information into the ILS-S, increasing the accuracy of the identifiers on the masks.

“In the past, the process was manually inputting all the serial numbers, lot numbers, and contract numbers,” said Miranda Sayre, materiel management chief. “It consumed a significant amount of time and encountered innumerable human errors that caused loss of accountability, time and money.”

This new process has helped decrease the time it takes to ship gas masks inbound and outbound to other Air Force installations as well. Sayre said scanning the QR code has helped cut their redistribution processes by more than 50 percent.

“Our IPE personnel can now ship out a few tri-walls of masks within 24 hours. Before, processing the transactions manually would have taken five days to accomplish the task,” she said.

The IPE Flight plans to eventually create a barcode system for all stock in IPE, allowing the scanners to process all mobility assets.

“Issuing mobility bags is one of the most labor and time-intensive parts of the deployment process,” Sayre said. “Utilizing the tablets and scanners will be a game-changer and dramatically increase the accuracy of our inventory and substantially reduce deployment processing times.”

She added, “Airmen can feel confident they are receiving the correct items to accomplish their mission downrange.”