Memo to war planners: no post-it notes or stubby pencils allowed.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.

Even though the U.S. Air Force operates the most technologically advanced war planning hubs in the world, much of the critical information that commanders use to make decisions is recorded on primitive printouts, acetate charts and post-it notes.

Hundreds of target planners, intelligence analysts, weather forecasters and other specialists at an air operations center run more than 50 different communications and computer systems, many of which cannot exchange information digitally.

This mishmash of sorts has irritated Air Force chief of staff Gen. John Jumper for years, his aides noted. Although the service has seen enormous advances in its ability to quickly plan and execute air wars, Jumper complained that command centers still have too many "stovepipes," resulting in computer systems that cannot share information.

When Jumper walks into an air operations center, he sees people printing things out of one system and typing them into another, and that frustrates him, noted Lt. Col. Larry Hall, director of the Air Force Experimentation Office. These manual data handoffs cause delays, which, even if they are only minutes, could make the difference between hitting or missing a target.

"That is not the way you want information flow to happen," Hall said.

Incompatible computer systems not only affect operations within each command center, but also hamper information sharing among theater commanders around the world. At a time when U.S. forces are deployed in many parts of the globe, the Air Force wants all regional commanders to have access to a real-time, common picture of whatever contingency may be erupting.

To bring order and discipline into the air operations centers' information systems, the Air Force plans to hire a contractor to serve as a lead systems integrator (LSI) in charge of standardizing the technology, so that every command center will have a common baseline. This responsibility always has been in the hands of military agencies, not contractors, but the Air Force believes that the private sector is better equipped to manage such a technically complex project.

The air operations centers today don't look alike, noted Maj. Gen. Gregory Power, Air Force director of integration. "We have uncoordinated systems."

To better understand how air operations centers should be managed, officers should treat the AOC no differently than any other weapon system, he noted. "Jumper wanted us to treat our AOC just like we treat our airplanes," said...