Simplifying Program Management through FHPM
In today’s fiscal climate, budgets are shrinking as expenses are increasing. The US Military must maximize their dollars to meet their readiness goals. Key to the readiness equation for Fly organizations within the DoD is the necessity to support aircrew training with related costs via Flying Hour Programs. The President’s Budget for 2023 funds the USAF Flying Hour Program at 914,482 flying hours; a decrease of 22,565 hours from Fiscal Year 2022 and 83% of the maximum executable flying hours level of 1.1 million flying hours.[1] In essence, every hour counts.
Making Every Hour Count
Tracking millions of hours across hundreds of locations around the world is no small task. Historically, spreadsheets have been used for analysis and tracking of flying hours. Spreadsheets are easy to create and use for specialized purposes. However, spreadsheets to manage programs such as Flying Hours is dangerous. Spreadsheets can get passed between dozens, if not hundreds of users. The integrity of the spreadsheet is impacted when users make manual inputs, change formulas, or report data from different points in time. That’s why organizations such as the Air National Guard are turning to ITI’s Flying Hours Program Management (FHPM) system.
Using FHPM, the ANG successfully executed 100.1% of their President’s Budgeted (PB) hours for the Flying Hour Program for FY22 and that was less than the budgeted amount!
Organizations such as the Air National Guard are turning to ITI’s Flying Hours Program Management (FHPM) system for proactive management of hours flown.
When fuel costs increased dramatically in 2022, the Air National Guard was able to quickly pivot and make adjustments
where needed.
FHPM is an enterprise tool that helps organizations such as the Air National Guard in organizing, tracking, and managing its Flying Hours program. FHPM is a leading indicator system that supports planning. It also tracks execution across multiple data sources and applies business rules to call out potential disconnects. FHPM allows Program Managers and Program Offices to coordinate on
a single version of the truth — from the initial allocation at the start of the fiscal year, through reallocations during the Fiscal Year, and to close out.
Real-Time Collaboration and Integration
Real-time collaboration and integration are more important in today’s armed forces than ever before. By sharing data between systems, FHPM accurately accounts for increases, decreases, and changes in flying hours and rates. For example, when fuel costs increased dramatically in 2022 and the Flying Hours program was executing over the President’s Budget amount, ANG was able to use fuel data from Fuel Transaction Program Management (FTPM), accounting data, and Hours within FHPM to analyze rate fuel costs versus consumption cost, which allowed the command to make adjustments where needed. Collaboration allows organizations to work in tandem, ensure a free flow of communication and ensure all parties are accessing the same information. Collaboration is a critical component to optimize execution.
Confidence in data is paramount for confident decision making. Data confidence comes from data quality and fidelity.
Confident Decision Making
FHPM functions as a one-stop shop data repository that presents data and information to users in an organized, coherent, and readable way. The system validates flying hours flown based on a series of checks and maintainable business rules. The system brings together data to track actual hours flown compared to budgeted hours. The system applies rates based on the precise Cost Per Flying Hour (CPFH) rate throughout the year for leadership visibility of funding.
FHPM maintains data integrity and delivers high credibility by applying fuel rate changes based on effective dates. This feature alone was critically important during a year of rate changes such as 2022. Tracking flying hours in real time, incorporating all flying hour cost factor set to calculate impacts on funding. This is important for wings, command, finance and logistics. At all points of the Flying Hours process, key elements are tracked, cross-referenced, and aligned to present accurate funding, budgeting, and information usage.
Leadership at all levels require the latest information to support the decision-making process. With FHPM, leadership can have confidence in flying out the program versus an early Stop Fly date. Not to mention its ability to see up-to-date executed hours, visibility to track program compared to budgetary levels, and on-demand spend rate information. Moreover, FHPM supports audit compliance for tracking and reporting flying hours.
FHPM is a robust, dynamic, and user-friendly system that saves time, improves productivity, and boost access to higher quality data for better decision-making.
Contact Infinite Technologies, Inc. for more information about Flying Hours Program Management (FHPM).