Airmen at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base created an innovative tool, now used Air Combat Command-wide, for leadership to track their Airmen downrange.

Two Airmen from the 355th Communications Squadron crafted the tool, called the Blue Line Tracker, for a simpler way to compile this information.

“This could possibly replace the different tools that people use to track their deployed personnel and it makes things much easier for them,” said Senior Airman Brian Williams, a 355th CS knowledge management journeyman. “There was no set standard between the units and when we all tried to come together and create a standard, it was very difficult because they all had their set ways of doing things. We created a standardized system where a lot of the work is done behind the scenes.”

Maj. Jonathan Guerrero, the 355th CS deputy commander, presented the tracker to ACC leadership in March after the squadron successfully created and utilized the tool at the start of fiscal year 2015.

“We had over 1,200 folks deployed, which was the largest deployment on base since World War II,” he said. 

With the help of the 355th Force Support Squadron, Installation Personnel Readiness pulls deployment requirement manning documents from a database that provides the Air Force cross-functional integration for the four main functional domains: operations, logistics, manpower and personnel.

This information is later imported into the tool. The tool is automatically updated every week, taking only a few minutes.

After the six default queries to input personal information about the deployed member is completed, the squadrons have the choice of entering optional data fields such as care package sent, spouse contact, and deployed email.

The wing commander all the way down to unit deployment managers all have access to the tracker to view unclassified information on all deployed Airmen in their unit.

The innovative tracker is now being used by multiple ACC installations to aid base leaders’ management of their deployed Airmen.