Bio

Developing a Lean Six Sigma Army

Feedback
Rss

Send Article

Print

Past Content

Lt. Gen David Melcher, military deputy for budget, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army
(Financial Management and Comptroller).
Photo by Jacqueline M. Hames
(Army News Service: Washington D.C.) -- The Armys top uniformed budget officer stressed
the importance of transforming the service to a capability-focused Army Enterprise during the
Army Leader Forum at the Pentagon on May 20.
Lt. Gen. David Melcher, military deputy for budget at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the
Army (financial management and comptroller), illustrated why its necessary to adapt and
transform the institutional Army during his presentation.
The Army should run more like an enterprise to better develop and maintain a force in a period
of extended conflict, he says, in which demands exceed sustainable resources. He predicted even
tighter resources over the next few years, especially with a trend of smaller supplemental budget
bills to finance the war on terror.

We have enjoyed levels of spending over the last few years that are unprecedented in the
Armys history ... and may be the high-watermark for the Armys budget, he says.
An enterprise management task force has been proposed to help implement business
transformation across the Army, Melcher says. Though still being conceptualized, he says the
task force may be managed by a three-star general and a senior executive service deputy.
Its necessary for an enterprise approach to counteract consumption-driven behaviors present
in todays Army, Melcher explained. Efforts to adapt the Armys current structure focus on
continuous process improvement through programs such as lean Six Sigma, enterprise resource
planning, leadership training in enterprise management, and the revision of General Order No. 3.
General Order No. 3 assigns functions and responsibilities to organizations in headquarters,
department of the Army. Though still in revision, the order is predicted to guide the Army
enterprise, Melcher says, and will support the Armys transformation.
The Army will grow from the business transformation stage to a lean Six Sigma-centered
institution before reaching the enterprise end-state. Lean Six Sigma is a process improvement
program that helps to eliminate unnecessary steps while improving output quality, and Melcher
says it has a key role in transforming the Army into an enterprise.
Lean Six Sigma is as much common sense as anything else, Melcher says.
The process will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, taking place over an extended
period of time, he says.
By the spring of 2011, Melcher expects the Army will have established accountability metrics
and mechanisms, instilled stewardship of resources as an Army value, and have established an
effective governance structure and culture that supports the capability-focused Army Enterprise.
This is about thinking things through in a proactive and meaningful way, he says.
For more information, visit www.army.mil/-news/2008/05/21/9331-army-enterprise-developingthrough-process-improvement/

Government & Defense

HOW LEAN SIX SIGMA IMPROVES GOVERNMENT
Virtually every government is being asked by taxpayers to do more with less. Thus, governments
are beginning to imitate businesses by implementing Lean Six Sigma. Administrators are looking
to industry-proven best practices to improve public systems like education, transportation, social
services, waste management, environmental protection, and much more.
Outside of the business sector, process improvement goals are more focused on improving cycle
time and service quality. For example, already poorly defined processes suffer from complexities
introduced by defects, poor information flow, and excessive handoffs all major causes of long
cycle times. Lean Six Sigma provides the tools to visualize and document rework routes,
information flow, and handoffs. It also provides a powerful roadmap for continuous
improvement.
Importantly, practitioners must understand how to adjust Lean Six Sigma tools from their roots
in manufacturing to service-oriented applications in the public sector. Fortunately, this work has
begun. Success stories from cities across the nation such as Fort Wayne, Indiana demonstrate that
the methodology can produce impressive results.
For more information on Lean Six Sigma implementations in Government, contact us.
HOW LEAN SIX SIGMA IMPROVES DEFENSE
The U.S. Department of Defense has dictated the implementation of Lean Six Sigma to achieve
the highest level of cost-wise readiness. Indeed, the lifecycle costs of operating and maintaining
todays advanced weapons systems are more expensive than their acquisition. Hence, there is
pressure to reduce the costs of operating aging equipment.
However, unlike a steady production line in manufacturing, demand in military logistics systems
is highly variable and uncertain. Lean Six Sigma deals effectively with this fundamental issue of
military operations. Applications are adjusted or supplemented with methodologies such as
Theory of Constraints to improve maintenance throughput and turnaround times while
optimizing inventories and associated supply chains to protect readiness.
Lean Six Sigma provides the framework for making fact-based decisions, enabling processes to
be positively changed within the military ranks, and driving continuous improvement using a
structured approach. In this way, the armed services achieve sustainable performance increases
and cost-containment. NOVACES has crafted a roadmap called SystemCPISM that is designed to
plan and manage large-scale deployments of continuous process improvement.
For more information about our consulting and training services for Lean Six Sigm in Defense,
contact us.

Army Adopting Lean Six Sigma

Written By: Six Sigma Training Assistant

9-24-2006

Categorized in: Six Sigma in Military/Defense, Six Sigma News

Lean Six Sigma integrates two independently-developed improvement tools: Lean and Six
Sigma. Lean is an outgrowth of the Toyota production system, and focuses on increasing
efficiency and reducing cycle time by the elimination of waste.
Six Sigma was developed by Motorola beginning in the 1970s as an approach to improving
quality and effectiveness through statistical control. Its roots go back more than 150 years to a
Prussian mathematician who introduced the concept of the normal curve.
Together, Lean and Six Sigma are powerful tools in transforming organizations, Army Materiel
Command officials said. They said Lean Six Sigma enables a culture of innovation that
continuously listens to customers, questions the status quo, and improves results through factbased decisions.
.Streamlining familiar goal for military
It's essentially to take the work out of a process and to apply it both to a factory-type operation
or repair, and also to a headquarters operation, like the Department of Army, said Secretary of
the Army Francis J. Harvey at a Pentagon press briefing March 23.
Back in 1982 it was called Quality and Productivity Improvement. Then we called it Total
Quality Management. Then we called it Business Process Re-engineering. We've had several
different names for the same thing, said Harvey. You look at the way you do business, and you
change it for the better.
AMC first employed Lean in 2002 as a tool to better wage the Global War on Terrorism and
enable transformation. By 2004, Lean evolved to Lean Six Sigma and AMC began a program to
develop the workforce in the use of these tools .
AMC black belts to train others
Headquarters AMC has trained almost 200 people since it began its Green Belt, Black Belt, and
Master Black Belt programs in Lean Six Sigma in November 2004, said Ron Davis, AMC
deputy chief of staff for Industrial Operations.
Different levels of training and experience are awarded martial arts-like belts to show the level of
the persons certification. The AMC master black belts go on to mentor others in the command.

In a nutshell, the benefit to training our own people rather than just bringing in hired folks from
industry or academia is self-sufficiency, said Rod Tozzi, AMC Industrial Operations directorate.
Thats the bottom line. If were going to do this and continue to do this, and were going to
make this part of our culture, the only way to do that is to grow it in house.
Weve already identified well over 20 processes that are Army-wide processes that we want to
take on using Lean Six Sigma. . . . Were on the very beginning of making Lean Six Sigma, and
the disciplined approach that comes with that, a major part of the way the Army does business,
said Maj. Gen. Ross Thompson III, Army G-8.
Thompson is an authority on the Armys use of Lean Six Sigma. He cites the cumbersome
planning, programming and budget execution system as an example, stating that budget items
should be addressed individually rather than in batches, an inherently inefficient process.
The challenge I gave to folks who are working through this is I want to take half of the steps
and half of the time out of the PPBE process, which people would say, Its impossible. And I
say its very doable, said Thompson.
Sound Off...What do you think?
Source: Military.com

Free Lean Six Sigma Training Government and Military

Personnel
Six Sigma training has succeeded in earning a good name in corporate sector. Now it is all set to
make its strong presence in the government and military. Kingsrealm LLC has released a
complete Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certifiable training course available at no cost to all the
US Government, DoD and Military personnel. The company has voluntarily decided to help the
staffs that form a core part of the country's support base.
Kingsrealm simplified its strategic Six Sigma methods and procedures so that everyone can get
equal benfits from the training. The training is available online with minimal registration
requirements. You can register for free training on the company's website. You can read on of our
older posts titled "Army gets high payback because of Lean Six Sigma" to know more about Six
Sigma training in the US military.
Army Adopting Lean Six Sigma
Army News Service | John Reese | February 08, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Armys growing Lean Six Sigma program has its roots in a corporate
method of eliminating wasted time, money and material.
Lean Six Sigma integrates two independently-developed improvement tools: Lean and Six
Sigma. Lean is an outgrowth of the Toyota production system, and focuses on increasing
efficiency and reducing cycle time by the elimination of waste.
Six Sigma was developed by Motorola beginning in the 1970s as an approach to improving
quality and effectiveness through statistical control. Its roots go back more than 150 years to a
Prussian mathematician who introduced the concept of the normal curve.
Together, Lean and Six Sigma are powerful tools in transforming organizations, Army Materiel
Command officials said. They said Lean Six Sigma enables a culture of innovation that
continuously listens to customers, questions the status quo, and improves results through factbased decisions.
.Streamlining familiar goal for military
It's essentially to take the work out of a process and to apply it both to a factory-type operation
or repair, and also to a headquarters operation, like the Department of Army, said Secretary of
the Army Francis J. Harvey at a Pentagon press briefing March 23.
Back in 1982 it was called Quality and Productivity Improvement. Then we called it Total
Quality Management. Then we called it Business Process Re-engineering. We've had several
different names for the same thing, said Harvey. You look at the way you do business, and you
change it for the better.

AMC first employed Lean in 2002 as a tool to better wage the Global War on Terrorism and
enable transformation. By 2004, Lean evolved to Lean Six Sigma and AMC began a program to
develop the workforce in the use of these tools .
AMC black belts to train others
Headquarters AMC has trained almost 200 people since it began its Green Belt, Black Belt, and
Master Black Belt programs in Lean Six Sigma in November 2004, said Ron Davis, AMC
deputy chief of staff for Industrial Operations.
Different levels of training and experience are awarded martial arts-like belts to show the level of
the persons certification. The AMC master black belts go on to mentor others in the command.
In a nutshell, the benefit to training our own people rather than just bringing in hired folks from
industry or academia is self-sufficiency, said Rod Tozzi, AMC Industrial Operations directorate.
Thats the bottom line. If were going to do this and continue to do this, and were going to
make this part of our culture, the only way to do that is to grow it in house.
Weve already identified well over 20 processes that are Army-wide processes that we want to
take on using Lean Six Sigma. . . . Were on the very beginning of making Lean Six Sigma, and
the disciplined approach that comes with that, a major part of the way the Army does business,
said Maj. Gen. Ross Thompson III, Army G-8.
Thompson is an authority on the Armys use of Lean Six Sigma. He cites the cumbersome
planning, programming and budget execution system as an example, stating that budget items
should be addressed individually rather than in batches, an inherently inefficient process.
The challenge I gave to folks who are working through this is I want to take half of the steps
and half of the time out of the PPBE process, which people would say, Its impossible. And I
say its very doable, said Thompson.
Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.

Army gets high payback because of Lean Six Sigma

The army and a business unit seem like the two ends of a pole. When you talk about the army, it
is easy to build an image of a regimented life straightjacketed in a sense of duty and stringent
rules and regulations.
Think of a business enterprise, and you can conjure up an image characterized by spot decisions,
money matters, and a perennial struggle to cut costs and increase returns. All in all, you would
think that running the army could not be farther away from running a business.
But it is a fact that the army goes through several of its processes from a business standpoint;
there is buying and selling within the army, and money is exchanged for purchase of equipment,
payment of pay packages, and for improving processes. So there is scope for business processes
like Lean Six Sigma to be implemented in the army.
At the 96th Regional Readiness Command in Utah, Lean Six Sigma is not only a reality, but it
has yielded positive results. According to depot commander Col. Douglas J. Evans, the
Command has used Six Sigma principles to save precious dollars and increased the number of
vehicles available for needy soldiers.
The U.S. army has also extended application of Lean Six Sigma to its Recruiting Command to
significantly reduce the time cycle for applicants to get through the recruitment process. The
army has also successfully used Six Sigma at the Army Material Command, which saw $110
million in savings and cost avoidance.