Category: Government/Non-Profit

The U.S. Marine Corps’ continuous process improvement (CPI) effort is aimed at enhancing all aspects of support provided to operating forces to maximize combat readiness and war fighting capability. That means the Marine Corps is emphasizing that the CPI program is for every level and every element of the corps. Here is what is being […]

The U.S. Army’s Lean Six Sigma (LSS) deployment will be two years old in summer 2008. Thousands of Belts are trained, thousands of projects are completed, hundreds of Belts are certified, and practitioners report more than $2 billion dollars in cost savings and cost avoidance. While these results speak of great success, the Army must […]

Lean teaches us batching is bad. Right? The answer is: It depends. If you can then answer the question, “it depends on what?” you’ll start to see that Lean is much more subtle and multifaceted than the seemingly simple elements and tools might imply.

The accounts payable process at the U.S. Coast Guard Finance Center was overstressed from increasing complexity and a patchwork of temporary IT fixes. A project team broke through the complexity and designed a Lean, effective and scalable process.

For Lt. Col. Harry Yates of the 335th Theater Signal Command and his deployment advisor Capt. George Harris, Lean Six Sigma is having a big impact on the way daily work gets done. The 335th is an Army Reserve command co-located with Fort McPherson in East Point, Georgia. It is responsible for signal operations supporting […]

“So what?” That’s all your CEO has to say after you present your latest Lean Six Sigma triumph. You gaze out over a deafeningly silent boardroom. Your team is stunned. While you try to comprehend the CEO’s demoralizing response, the other managers and administrators chime in: “Yeah, so what?” The above scenario might be an […]

In an interview with iSixSigma, Cmdr. Stanley Dobbs shares his approach toward Lean Six Sigma project selection and execution, as well as insight into the Navy’s positive response to continuous process improvement.

A project to optimize family practice patient flow at the Guthrie Ambulatory Healthcare Clinic, part of the U.S. Army Medical Activity (MEDDAC) at Fort Drum, N.Y., was initiated in November 2007. The goal: to reduce process cycle time while maintaining the same quality of care and to increase patient satisfaction from the time the patient […]

Through a two-year Six Sigma project, the Department of Defense (DoD) Acquisition and Technology Programs Task Force (ATP TF) coordinated a revision to a joint weapon system safety review process that provided a 59 percent reduction in cycle time. Without the Six Sigma framework, the project might not have achieved the success it did within […]

Six Sigma, with its emphasis in many cases on hard, current-year results, is often not associated with government agencies and their processes. One reason is that a government’s mission is as much about providing services to the public and other stakeholders as it is about cutting costs and realizing efficiencies. In fact, there is frequently […]

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article was previously published in the September/October 2009 issue of iSixSigma Magazine. When the U.S. Department of Defense opened a Continuous Process Improvement/Lean Six Sigma Program Office in October 2007, the office had no budget, no staff and, in fact, no office space. But it did have a […]

Personnel and Readiness Information Management (P&R IM), Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), led an in-depth analysis of the Health Treatment Record (HTR) life cycle management process. The HTR is the chronological documentation of medical, dental and mental health care received by a service member during the course of his or […]

With increased budget cuts and dwindling funding, Army organizations are examining how best to manage budgets and stretch dollars to provide the best logistical support to soldiers. Army organizations at Natick, Mass., USA, are using Lean Six Sigma to establish a joint process to improve the accuracy of the soldier equipment support budget proposals by […]

Leaders from across the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and various agencies and activities, will gather Oct. 22 to 23, 2008 in Washington, D.C., to discuss the state of the department’s Lean Six Sigma deployment. The event, named the Breakthrough Convention and produced by iSixSigma Live! is an […]

In the following videos, Army Senior Leaders discuss the use of Lean Six Sigma as part of their Business Transformation goals. The videos also include success stories from projects to improve Army processes.

Since 2007, the Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) Life Cycle Management Command (LCMC) has made efforts to institutionalize a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. The goal to have TACOM LCMC associates at every level advocate, pursue and implement continuous process improvement methods through the promulgation of Lean Six Sigma across the command is a […]

Product Manager, Transportation Information Services (PM TIS) is an Army program under the auspices of the Program Executive Office, Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS). The PM TIS organization includes the Customer Service Center (CSC) which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to answer questions and resolve issues related to software that […]

From September 2006 to December 2008 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed several weapon programs and identified problems resulting in billions of dollars in cost overruns, long schedule delays and reduced weapon system availability. The major reason for these reliability problems was poor systems engineering practices related to requirements analysis, design and testing. The GAO […]

In an interview with iSixSigma, J.D. Sicilia, director of the Department of Defense Lean Six Sigma Program Office, shares about the purpose of the office, his deployment strategy and how the office will interact with the services.

In today’s U.S. Army, it’s not caissons that are rolling along. It’s Lean Six Sigma. From the mess hall at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, to the recruiting command at Fort Knox, Ky., to the Texas depot where beat-up Humvees are rebuilt to go back into combat, the sweeping rollout of Lean Six […]

Red River Army Depot (RRAD) is a sprawling industrial complex of some 1,400 buildings on 18,300 acres in northeast Texas. Called one of the “crown jewels of the Army” by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr., Red River is a leader in supporting the warfighter. The depot’s mission is to return torn-up, […]

On Monday June 1, 2009 Continuous Improvement Practitioners (CI-P), from the State of Maine “Bend the Curve” initiative, led by Walter Lowell, conducted a study mission at Lonza in Rockland Maine. To quote from the Lonza web site, “Lonza is one of the world’s leading suppliers to the pharmaceutical, healthcare and life science industries. Its […]

Saw an article this week in the Federal Computer Week emagazine about our new President making federal contracting more efficient. This is great news and about time. http://fcw.com/articles/2009/03/04/obama-reforms-contracting.aspx?s=fcwdaily_050309 This looks very promising for the Lean Government Champions. Sounds like a job for a Continuous Improvement Practitioner. Are there any CI-Ps in the federal government yet?

Erie County’s Six Sigma initiative is set to save 1.5 million dollars by year end. Almost a half million more than the initial goal. Below is the news reporting the story. Interviews with Al Hammonds, Deputy County Executive and former Six Sigma Director as well as the new Six Sigma Director Bill Carey. http://www.wgrz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=61254&provider=gnews Yet […]