THE USAF SINGLE-FACE-TO-THE CUSTOMER (SFTC) CONCEPT

Abstract

In the early 1990's, the United States Air Force (USAF)/Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) Test and Evaluation (T&E) Mission Element Board approved the Single-Face-to-the-Customer (SFTC) concept to become more customer oriented and to provide more up-front planning by establishing single points of contact organized by mission areas rather than by test centers. The areas evolved to airframe-propulsion-avionics (A-P-A), armament/munitions, command-control-communications-computers-intelligence (C4I), electronic warfare (EW), and space. Use of the SFTC concept is required in formal USAF directives and details of the specific coverage for each mission area will be contained in mission area manuals. The primary mission of the SFTC Offices is to provide consulting services during initial T&E planning for new programs and major modification/product improvement programs and during T&E investment planning. Also, support is provided for T&E process advocacy, information repository services, and training on the SFTC concept. This paper discusses the USAF SFTC concept of operations and its status.