Air Force planning enterprise C4ISR review

C4ISR — command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance — touches every part of the Air Force and is therefore the heart of the service's transformation. That's why the Air Force will begin regular reviews of enterprise capabilities, with the first one planned for next month.

Maj. Gen. Craig Weston, vice commander of the Air Force Materiel Command's Electronic Systems Center (ESC), Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., said the service separates its C4ISR enterprise into four domains:

* Combat operations.

* Combat support.

* Business operations.

* Common integrated infrastructure, which is the Air Force's information backbone.

The first three domains overlap, and all are supported by the common infrastructure, but now the service wants to know what progress is being made in integrating all four areas, Weston said, speaking Nov. 13 at Air Force IT Day sponsored by the Northern Virginia chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) International.

"The integration execution review will look at how we are doing in horizontally integrating the four domains," Weston told FCW. He said the ESC commander, Lt. Gen. William Looney III, will be the chairman of the review, which will take place the first week of December.

Although this will be the first review of its kind, the plan eventually will include other portions of the Air Force Materiel Command and the Air Force Space Command in reviews three to four times per year, he said.

"There's no doubt we'll have to make adjustments as we decide what the right things are to measure and the right things to status," Weston told FCW. "It's an evolving review and will change as we get smarter in the review process."