You may have seen the cover of the September/October issue of iSixSigma Magazine, featuring J.D. Sicilia and “The DoD Roundup.” The western theme continued into the DoD Breakthrough Convention, Oct. 14 to 16.

Here’s a sneak peak of the fun: Jeannine Hall, director of events, taking a hand at roping a bull. Yes, this may look like a bale of hay with plastic horns, but use your imagination, as we did, and you’ll soon be envisioning City Slickers – in suits. Note: This is not a professional photograph, but some iPhone handiwork by Mike Cyger.

Imagination was just one of the topics at the second annual event. More than 350 process improvement leaders from across the U.S. Department of Defense gathered in Lansdowne, Va., at the National Conference Center. One of my favorite facts about the DoD is that it is larger than the top five Fortune 500 companies combined. In an organization that large, building a continuous process improvement culture enterprise wide is, needless to say, no small feat.

The Breakthrough Convention is one of the ways that the Defense Department is continuing to unite its Lean Six Sigma initiative under a common vision. Presenters hailed from several of the DoD services and agencies, as well as from other federal organizations, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs.

You can get a glimpse of the photos of the presentations and networking receptions here. (And more roping photos here.)

And find out more about the DoD’s performance improvement efforts by reading “The DoD Roundup” on the iSixSigma Military Channel.

A year ago iSixSigma Magazine featured the U.S. Army’s business transformation program in a cover story, recognizing the change management efforts and project successes from one of the largest Lean Six Sigma deployments ever attempted. Since then, ties between the U.S. armed forces and Lean Six Sigma have only gotten stronger.

In May 2008, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England signed Directive 5010.42, which directs defense department services and agencies to adopt Lean Six Sigma. Continuous improvement is no longer an option.

With millions of individuals now part of the deployment, many more people will be introduced to Lean Six Sigma tools. To serve this growing community, iSixSigma publishes a Military Channel (military.isixsigma.com).

This portal is a resource for everyone associated with the business transformation of the U.S. military. It is designed to provide communication updates on deployments, and the opportunity for military leaders at all levels to learn new skills, advance their careers and contribute to the success of their organizations.

We need your help. We’re looking for article submissions from those of you involved in the continuous improvement movement throughout the U.S. military. Are you a Belt working on projects or providing training? Share your successes and challenges (and how you met them) with the iSixSigma Military Channel audience. Or take some aspect of Six Sigma that you are keenly interested in and expand on it.

To submit an article, visit: isixsigma.com/submit. Got an idea for an article? Contact me at editorial.com@isixsigma.com.

One thing I really like about the government Six Sigma initiatives is the public sharing of information. The DOD units are so proud to talk about how they are using Six Sigma and the benefits they are getting out of it.

The Indian Head Division of NAVSEA has an entire website dedicated to Lean Six Sigma. They share Lean Six Sigma success stories and updates via their Lean-Quality Newsletters. They even share the entire Lean implementation plan.

According to the total savings in their success stories, since 2005 the Indian Head Division has saved nearly 8 million dollars and 2007 projections total nearly $1.5 million.

Other Navy divisions are eager to showcase success as well. Read about NAVSUP and their Six Sigma initiative and watch this video that shows how they used Lean Six Sigma to maximize ordnance delivery.

As big as the Army is, the opportunities for improvement abound. However, the tolerance for improvement projects (particularly long drawn out ones) is very low. Any thing that takes more than 90 days to complete is considered a waste of time. Or worse you get called an "oxygen thief."

What I have found is that one of the best ways to overcome this is to leverage projects completed and replicate them as Rapid Improvement Events. People get excited if they know a problem can be fixed in a few days. I feel that it is largely psychological as the real work is in controlling the process not fixing it.

To date, over 1000 BB and GB projects have been completed. This is a huge platform to link problems to solutions and drive towards critical mass.

If you subscribe to iSixSigma magazine, please read the feature about how we used LSS to improve our Supply Requisition Process.

The article is on page 22. Enjoy.

For the Army deployment, this is " the year of production." We are in full swing of BB and GB training plus project completion for certification. The work in progress is pretty high. We have a full pipeline of newly trained belts itching to do projects. But with a constraint to complete x number by the end of the year, do we accept lower project rigor in order to finish? Then increase the rigor as we go along? Or do we ensure belts really understand how to go from "soup to nuts" on a project before releasing them into the wild?

Surely project mentoring is a huge part of the equation, but will we end up mentoring more once they are done or less? What is the right mix?

From Army recruiting to the Bradley fighting vehicle (and everything in between -including meal scheduling), the US Army continues to improve processes and save dollars through Lean Six Sigma.

“Lean Six Sigma techniques implemented throughout the Army continue to prove successful, and leaders anticipate reaching a $2 billion-savings mark this year.”

Yesterday’s article on army.mil/news showcases several of the Army Lean Six Sigma projects that Green Belts and Black Belts have been working on:

• More efficient meal scheduling
• Streamlining the communication process across the chain of command through lieutenant generals
• Army recruiting process reduced from 32 steps to 11 steps
• Reduction in clothing outlet inventory

Go Army!

Army Business Transformation Knowledge Center

Lean Six Sigma

The United States military has recently ramped up process improvement initiatives in the Air Force, Army and Navy. Mark Graban over at the Lean Blog recently wrote a post about the Lean efforts of the Air Force. I thought I’d share even more information about the program here.

The primary goal of Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century (AFSO 21) is to eliminate waste. Time, manpower and money are all targeted. Some sources say that 80 percent of the AFSO 21 efforts are Lean but numerous other tools and methods make up the AFSO 21 Playbook - Value Stream Mapping, Constraint Analysis, Root Cause Analysis, Six Sigma/Statistical Analysis and Quality Function Deployment just to name just a few.

AFSO 21 is the name given to improvement initiatives mandated by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Mosely and Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne. In November 2005 Michael Wynn wrote a letter to the Airmen detailing the mission and goals of the Air Force which included:

“Foster Lean Processes across the Total Air Force. Lean is about highest quality, and husbanding resources; from completing BRAC actions, to flight line operations, and inventory. We all can contribute.”

To demonstrate the size and commitment of the Air Force to the Smart Ops 21 initiative they have recently awarded hefty contracts to consulting firms to provide support and training:

Bearing Point, Alexandria, Va., was awarded on 16 April 2007, a $99,000,000 firm fixed price contract. This action provides for Advisory and Assistance Services for Air Force Smart Operations 21. http://www.defenselink.mil/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=3502

Mainstream GS, LLC., Loveland, Colo., is being awarded a $90,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract. This action provides for the Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) Program to provide contractor support in the achievement of AFSO21 initiatives at Ogden Air Logistics Center and throughout the Air Force.
http://www.defenselink.mil/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=3461

The University of Tennessee was recently awarded a five-year, $25 million contract to University of Tennessee’s College of Business for the primary purpose of training and certifying trainers who will eventually train Air Force personnel in implementing AFSO21 in their respective local operations.
http://www.lionhrtpub.com/orms/orms-2-07/smartops.html

General Dynamics Corp. was awarded a five-year, $28 million contract from the Air Force’s Air Combat Command to provide transformation and continuous process improvement support to the Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century effort.
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/online/1_1/30557-1.html

Links

Main AFSO 21 Website

Current news stories about AFSO 21

Smart Ops 21: Improving the Air Force one process at a time

For a Fourth of July Six Sigma post, I’ll pay tribute to the Lean Six Sigma efforts in the United States Military operations. Read success stories from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

In God We Trust, Everyone Else Bring Data

This is a nine and a half minute audio excerpt of the KCPW show The Bottom Line, moderated by Lara Jones of KCPW News. Lara speaks with a panel of Army Colonels and gets to the bottom of Six Sigma at the Army Reserve’s 96th Regional Readiness Command. If you can make it through the definition of Six Sigma training at the beginning of the show you’ll find the interviews with Colonel Mike Petrash and Colonel Adele Connell to be enlightening and entertaining.

It’s a peak into how this Army Command is making the most of Six Sigma...applying it to personnel, logistics, awards and even leadership. Colonel Petrash talks about the culture change at the Command and Colonel Adele Connell shares a short story of how Six Sigma has helped the Army send battle ready front-line leaders to Iraq.

If you are pressed for time, download the show and just listen from about the three minute mark on for the Six Sigma in action war stories.