The Army Recognizes Special Warriors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact:

Lieutenant Colonel Brodrick Bailey

[email protected]

Washington, D.C. (December 17, 2009) – The Army has trained and developed a new breed of elite warrior who is earning battlefield plaudits and recognition.

This new breed of elite warrior operates worldwide and is engaged still in mortal combat. They are tasked with combating a determined and implacable foe: the Army and Pentagon bureaucracy, which has long been the bane of this, the world’s greatest fighting force. And, Army officials announced last week, this new breed of warrior is achieving spectacular battlefield success.

I refer, of course, to the Army’s new cadre of trained and certified Lean Six Sigma (LSS) practitioners, many of whom were honored recently by the Secretary of the Army (SA) and the Chief of Staff, Army (CSA) Lean Six Sigma Excellence (LEAP) awards ceremony, which was held in the Hall of heroes at the Pentagon and hosted by Lieutenant General Robert Durbin and Ms. Joyce Morrow. The LSS LEAP Award Program intent is to recognize the outstanding contributions to the Lean Six Sigma Program, but with a stronger focus to the benefits within the Army business processes.

Durbin directs the Army’s Enterprise Task Force, which is charged with effecting the transformation of the Army’s bureaucratic processes and procedures. Morrow is the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army and Acting Deputy Under Secretary of the Army.

“Collectively, the Lean Six Sigma community has completed nearly 5,000 projects [at a cost savings of] almost $14 billion,” Durbin said. This “simply could not have been achieved without the experience and know-how of this esteemed group.”

This esteemed group included nearly two dozen Army soldiers and civilians at 11 different Army commands, all of whom were recognized in this the 2nd Annual Lean Six Sigma Excellence Awards Ceremony. (See Table 1 for a detailed list of the awardees and their accomplishments.)

“Lean Six Sigma professionals like yourselves are providing the innovation, business savvy, and continuous drive to improve the way the Army operates,” Durbin said.

“Since June 2006,” he added, the Army has trained “more than 1,450 senior leaders in Lean Six Sigma” and commissioned 151 Master Black Belts, 1,805 Black Belts, and 4,603 Green Belts. This new breed of elite warrior is currently engaged in more than 1,800 projects, Durbin said.

Lean Six Sigma is a concept that American manufacturer, service, and healthcare industries have successfully pioneered and adopted to achieve a continuous process improvement in all areas of the business. The objective is to utilize a data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects and variation reduction from product to service. As a large, multifaceted and geographically diffuse enterprise, the Army has embraced Lean Six Sigma. This will make more cost-effective use of taxpayer dollars while better serving Soldiers and their families.

When the Army embraced Lean Six Sigma five years ago, Durbin said, it “understood that comprehensive transformation of the Army would demand a revolutionary program. We knew that we needed a trained and mature team who understood the Army, and who could apply critical thinking skills in a disciplined fashion to help the Army overcome the complexities of our organization.”

The Army’s Lean Six Sigma initiative has since grown and intensified in conjunction with the service’s heightened operational tempo caused by the need for ongoing troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, that’s why the Army commissioned Durbin’s Enterprise Task Force: to transform the service’s bureaucratic processes and procedures such that they could keep pace with escalating wartime demands.

“Operational units are built, trained, deployed, and returned to home at an unprecedented pace,” Durbin said. “So just doing the same old processes… faster to keep up with demand isn’t the answer. We must profoundly change how we operate and how we generate forces.”

This is a daunting challenge; however, Durbin said, “the Lean Six Sigma program is no longer a small effort operating within the Army.” In fact, Lean Six Sigma has been elevated to an enterprise- or Army-wide program which “has earned the recognition of senior Army leaders.”

“Many organizations have engaged in enterprise projects,” Durbin said, “and more organizations are expected to engage as our Lean Six Sigma deployment continues to mature.” For example, he noted, the Army’s Materiel Enterprise alone has chartered 43 enterprise-level projects.

Lean Six Sigma Excellence Awards, 2009
Award	Project	Awardee		Results
		Name	Organization(s)
HQDA Organizational Deployment Award	The award recognizes LSS deployment excellence at the organizational level.	Honorable Thomas R. Lamont and MG Gina S. Farrisee	Army G-1 Lean Six Sigma Deployment Office, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs	Recognized for outstanding efforts in the deployment of Lean Six Sigma methodologies and the achievement of exceptional process improvement results.
AR 10-87 Organizational Deployment Award	The award recognizes LSS deployment excellence at the organizational level.	LTG Rick Lynch and Mr. John Nerger	Installation Management Command	Recognized for outstanding efforts in the deployment of Lean Six Sigma methodologies and the achievement of exceptional process improvement results.
Subordinate Organizational Deployment Award	The award recognizes LSS deployment excellence at the organizational level.	GEN Ann E. Dunwoody and BG Larry Wyche	Joint Munitions Command	Recognized for outstanding efforts in the deployment of Lean Six Sigma methodologies and the achievement of exceptional process improvement results.
Enterprise Level Project Team Award	CO-ADOS Packet Simplification and Digitization	Honorable Thomas R. Lamont, MG Gina S. Farrisee and LTC Cheryl Moman	Army G-1 Lean Six Sigma Deployment Office, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs	Process cycle time reduction of 90% and packet errors/rework decreased by 40%. These improvements are anticipated to yield a net cost avoidance of $6.4M through FY2015.
Enterprise Level Project Team Award	CPSI Reset Cycle Time Reduction	GEN Ann E. Dunwoody, MG Yves J. Fontaine and Mr. Robert Farr	Army Sustainment Command	Reduced the Command Post System Integration (CPSI) Reset cycle time by 53%, eliminated the requirement for overtime work and reduced overall required man-hours while still improving process capability by 1.71. Annual cost reduction of $1.81M.
Non-Enterprise Level Project Team Award	Streamlining the DOL Supply Operations	GEN Ann E. Dunwoody, MG Yves J. Fontaine and CW4. Jose Marquez	Army Sustainment Command	Eliminated excel parts stored in the DOL PLL room, increased the parts inventory accountability and reduced maintenance parts lead time. Project resulted in a net savings of over $2.5M.
Non-Enterprise Level Project Team Award	G3/5-Improving Sparing Level Recommendation	GEN Ann E. Dunwoody, MG Randolph P. Strong and Mr. Devon Morrese	Headquarters U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command (CECOM LCMC)	Improved the model used to estimate sparing levels for weapons systems, resulting in reduced inventory cost – a project six year savings of $53.7M.
Non-Enterprise Level Project Team Award	HQACSIM-Installation Geospatial Information System (IGI&S) Data Standards	LTG Rick Lynch, Mr. James Furlo and Mr. Tony Whitehead	Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff of Installation Management (OACSIM)	Established standards and policy for the Geospatial Information System deployed throughout the OACSIM and IMCOM’s 160+ organizations, as well as the Army Reserves and National Guard, resulting in cost savings of $964K and cost avoidance of $750K.
Non-Enterprise Level Project Team Award	CHR Recruitment Measurement Process	Honorable Thomas R. Lamont, MG Gina S. Farrisee and Mr. Fred Moreno	Army G-1 Lean Six Sigma Deployment Office, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs	Improved the Civilian Human Resources Agency’s (CHRA) new employee hiring process by reducing cycle time and the number of errors caused by the improper use of “event codes”. Projected annual cost avoidance of $796K across the CHRA’s 100 world-wide operating units.
Non-Gated Project Team Award	Battery Assembly Project	GEN Ann E. Dunwoody, MG Randolph P. Strong and Mr. Seth Tiel	Battery Assembly Team, Transponder Branch, Avionics Division, D/C3/Avionics, Tobyhanna Army Depot (CECOM)	Reduction of 55% in per unit direct labor hours – a yearly cost savings of $415K.
Non-Gated Project Team Award	Forward Repair System (FRS) Improvement	GEN Ann E. Dunwoody, MG Scott G. West and Mr. Greg Lupton	Rock Island Arsenal Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Mobile Maintenance Integrated Product Team (TACOM)	Reduction of the material costs by 6.5% and direct labor hours by 16.5%, generating a total cost reduction of $8.116M, and addressed safety, productivity and ergonomic issues of providing the M7 Forward Repair System.