JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas — Agile, innovative, networked. That’s not a list of buzz words from the Air Force Association’s 2018 Air, Space & Cyber Conference. These words serve as the foundation for the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center.

On Oct. 1, 2018, AFIMSC celebrated its second year of full operational capability. The standup represented the Air Force’s largest change in more than 20 years as the service centralized 155 installation and mission support functions previously executed by the major commands and Headquarters Air Force into a single, intermediate level command.

Reflecting on the last two years, Maj. Gen. Brad Spacy, AFIMSC commander, said, “We’re changing the way the Air Force does everything that involves installation and mission support.”

The reorganization created unprecedented synergy amongst I&MS functions.

“If you look at how we prioritize and allocate resources today, it’s having a great impact,” Spacy said.

From the integrated priority list and associated construction tasking order to full spectrum readiness, AFIMSC streamlined processes to maximize resourcing agility and effectiveness. In fiscal year 2018 alone, the center executed $6.9 billion supporting readiness, improving infrastructure and enhancing the quality of life for Airmen across the Air Force.

The center for I&MS innovation, AFIMSC is helping reshape the installation from a platform to deliver services into an integrated weapons system of capabilities. In 2017, the center launched the Installation and Mission Support Weapons and Tactics Conference to tackle current and future I&MS challenges such as adaptive basing, base resiliency and failing installation infrastructure yielding over 50 initiatives. One such initiative is the Combat Support Wing.

The Combat Support Wing is designed to be an on-call Agile Combat Support force of multi-functional Airmen trained and equipped to quickly establish multiple Forward Operating Locations in a non-permissive environment in order to conduct 5th Gen integrated rearm and refuel combat turns. The concept is already being field tested with positive results and demonstrates the center’s extraordinary ability to decrease flash to bang on conceptualizing and field testing innovative ideas, the commander said.

“If this works and two live-fly exercises show great promise, it will give operators a new way to fight. It will turn theory into practice,” Spacy said.

Perhaps the most important aspect of AFIMSC is the ability to globally network the I&MS enterprise. Viewing challenges through an enterprise-wide lens has resulted in a number of efficiencies such as category management, which capitalizes on business intelligence and economy of scale to make mass purchases as a single entity. Efforts to date have saved the Air Force more than $1 billion in less than two years.

Looking toward the future, AFIMSC is committed to revolutionizing combat support, Spacy said. Leveraging agility, innovation and enterprise networking, the center’s future is unwritten, but boundless with the potential to completely reshape delivery of I&MS operations.

“We’re in a unique position to do that,” Spacy said. “We’re changing the way we bring new capabilities to the table and how we fight the war.”