The 490th Missile Squadron
The Story
60 hours, every month.
Every month, the 490th Missile Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base needed to build a schedule for 55 personnel, balancing work duties against ongoing training requirements. The job took a four-person team roughly 60 hours of focused effort. A recurring tax on the unit before any actual operational work could even begin.
It wasn't just slow. The schedule routinely missed its release deadline, which meant other offices and individual airmen were left without the advance notice they needed to plan around. And even with all that time invested, the final schedule typically left around 24 shifts unfilled. Small in percentage terms, but operationally significant.
What We've Built
One script. Thirty minutes.
We built a custom script that ingests the unit's personnel data, qualifications, work requirements, and training obligations, and produces a complete monthly schedule for all 55 people. The same job that previously consumed 60 man-hours now runs end to end in under 30 minutes.
The script generates an optimized schedule, not just a valid one. The output is 13% more efficient in how it utilizes available personnel, which sounds modest until you translate it into the operational reality: ~24 shifts that previously went unfilled every month now get covered.
The system models each airman's individual constraints (protected time for religious services, the recurring blocks needed to pursue a master's degree, and other personal commitments) and respects them as inputs to the optimization. Accommodations that weren't feasible when producing a valid schedule already took a workweek now happen as a matter of course.
We handed the system over with the training and documentation the unit needs to run it themselves. The script lives inside their workflow, not ours. A tool they own, not a service they're dependent on.
Service 01
Automated Schedule Generation
We built a custom script that ingests the unit's personnel data, qualifications, work requirements, and training obligations, and produces a complete monthly schedule for all 55 people. The same job that previously consumed 60 man-hours now runs end to end in under 30 minutes.
The Results
From 60 hours to 30 minutes.
120×
13%
0
The schedule that used to consume a four-person team for the better part of a workweek now runs in less time than a coffee break. It also ships weeks ahead of its old deadline, restoring the advance notice that the rest of the squadron and adjacent offices depend on for their own planning.
And because the script optimizes coverage rather than just filling slots, the days of leaving 24 shifts uncovered each month are over. The work gets done. Nobody scrambles.
The same automation makes room for the people inside the unit. Airmen can have their religious observance protected, or block out the consistent windows they need to pursue a master's degree. Accommodations that simply weren't realistic when producing a working schedule already cost a workweek.
