The Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, Colo., is moving toward a paperless environment by converting thousands of paper and microfiche personnel records to an electronic format for Air National Guardsmen and Air Force Reserve airmen.
“These records represent reservists’ careers from the moment they are gained to the reserve until death, and even beyond, because then we use the record to provide service to the family,” said Jackie Bing, the center’s director of records quality management, during yesterday’s “DoD Live” bloggers roundtable.
Phased computer scanning of military personnel records and images is helping the Air Force Reserve move away from a paper-dependent environment, she added.
Since starting the effort two years ago, more than 120,000 paper records have been converted to an automated records management system. This system stores millions of retrievable documents on more than a million records using secure network storage technology, Bing explained.
ARPC officials are continuing the process by converting 130,000 paper records of nonparticipating reservists, retirees and discharged members and 6 million microfiche images by a March 31 target date.
Bing said more than 100 civilian contractor personnel are scanning the files using high-speed scanners, eliminating the previous process of printing out a record, making a copy and then scanning it. With the newer process, work gets done quicker, she said.
Andy Hamilton, a quality assurance evaluator for ARPC, said the team has a 100 percent quality review before downloading the records to the automated system and after the scanning. He added the Air Force is trying to create an environment in which documents are created within the system and go into the archives.
“With the use of smart forms, we’re trying to make this a 100 percent paperless environment,” he said.