Edwards welcomes ideas for new cost-saving initiative

Published Oct. 31, 2013
By Jet Fabara
412th Test Wing Public Affairs

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- The saying, "a penny for your thoughts," can go a long way in terms of coming up with cost-saving ideas, let alone when that idea involves saving an excess of $1 million.

To add to that concept, Team Edwards has begun Project84, a cost-savings initiative brought forth by Brig. Gen. Michael Brewer, 412th Test Wing commander. The project relies on the ideas of the entire Edwards community to provide ways of reducing the installation's yearly budget.

"Under the current economic climate, if we continue to do what we've done last year, we're going to run out of money this year, so it's incumbent upon us to figure out how we do our operations differently, how we get these ideas and execute these ideas so we can control our cost," said Brewer. "We've already received lots of good ideas. We're looking at things on energy savings, from lighting to how we operate our computers during the evenings, changes to our flight operations and training, but we have to keep these ideas coming in. Our goal is for us all to be $1,000 less costly on average this year, or about $84 per month, hence the term Project84."

Brewer said the intent of Project84 is to see if every person who works, lives or visits Edwards has a cost-saving idea to help save the base an average of $84 per month, in order for Edwards to meet its budget. That roughly equates to about $1,000 per person, per year.

"We have the opportunity now to save money, to do things better, smarter and more [efficiently]," said Rodney Cruse, 412 TW Plans and Programs and Project84 lead. "General Brewer has started this initiative because he wants to hear from all of us no matter where you work. If you have an idea to save money while maintaining safety and lawfulness, General Brewer wants to know about it and you can do that through Project84."

To make it simple and convenient for the base populace to submit its ideas, Cruse said the Project 84 team has come up with a variety of avenues.

"For this to be successful we need one key ingredient and that is your participation. Not every idea will be able to be implemented, but we have to collect them all, so we want to make sure people don't feel like their idea isn't of value," Brewer added. "All the ideas that we are unable to implement will have to come to me to be validated. All ideas will be heard, but really need your participation and I really believe if we do this, we can figure out how to make the budget work this year."

To submit your ideas to Project84, e-mail them to project84@us.af.mil or call (661) 275-8484. A Project84 tab will also be located on the bottom of the left-hand column on the Edwards home page, www.edwards.af.mil, and information will be added to the Edwards AFB site on the AF Portal.