Marines sharpen warfighting skills with business management strategies

Photo By Sgt. Raymond Lott | Marines and Department of Defense employees use the “statapult” during the Marine Corps Continuous Process Improvement Lean Six Sigma Program at the Marine Forces Reserve Headquarters here Feb. 10. The students were there to learn how to support the warfighting effort with business strategy. The statapult is an instrument used to generate statistics. The students launched the ball about two dozen times and recorded the results. The numbers were then put on a line graph. The students then repeated the process to eliminate the discrepancies of the first launch.  

NEW ORLEANS, LA, UNITED STATES

02.28.2012

Story by Sgt. Raymond Lott 

Marine Forces Reserve (MARFORRES)

NEW ORLEANS — Marines around the world are being taught how to improve warfighting skills with business management strategies through the Marine Corps Continuous Process Improvement Lean Six Sigma Program.

In corporate America, the program is utilized by business professionals to reduce waste to increase the profit margin, said Maj. Meredith Brown, a logistics officer assigned to Marine Forces North here. The Marine Corps uses the Six Sigma processes to decrease discrepancies to improve mission readiness.

Service members and Department of Defense employees here were able to gain those necessary tools during a Green Belt course at the Marine Corps Support Facility recently.

This is the second time this course has been instructed here. The first was in December 2011, said Pat Toomey, the lead Continuous Process Improvement instructor for the course.

The course has four belt certification levels: Yellow, Green, Black and Master Black Belt.

Yellow Belt certification provides an overall insight to the techniques of Six Sigma, its metrics, and basic improvement methodologies. The Green Belt provides participants with enhanced problem-solving skills, with an emphasis on the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) model. Black Belt provides participants with a thorough knowledge of Six Sigma philosophies and principles (including supporting systems and tools), according to sixsigmaonline.org

Master Black Belt level focuses on advanced Six Sigma statistic methods. In addition to typical Black Belt tools, new tools in areas such as study of variation, analysis, destructive testing, practical experimentation, optimizing experiments, according to 6sigma.us.

“This is basically college-level statistics and application of statistics to the business process,” said Richard Horne, a Continuous Process Improvement instructor with a Master Black-Belt distinction. “Each student should also come back to assist in the strategic goals and objectives of the commander.”

Although the Marine Corps is a Force, not a business, it is important for Marines to support warfighting excellence with well-managed operations that are both effective and efficient, said Gen. James F. Amos, the Commandant of the Marine Corps.

“This course gives you the tools to think outside the box,” said Capt. Adam McLaurin, a recent Green Belt graduate, and the adjutant for Headquarters Battalion, Marine Forces Reserve. “It teaches you to (identify) problems and come up with solutions. It’s all encompassing and not just for military purposes.”

MCO 5220.12 also states innovation has always been a key component of the Marine Corps tradition and leadership style. Continuous improvement is both an opportunity and obligation. It is the responsibility of leaders and supervisors at all levels to bring good ideas to the surface and support the implementation.

“The objective of this course is for the students to go back to their organizations and take a problem that is process related and facilitate and lead that team through three tool sets: Lean, Theory of Constraints and Six Sigma,” said Toomey.

“Six Sigma tool set is all about to reduce the variation so the customer gets the same product every time,” said Toomey. “It makes it very predictable where processes are concerned.
This course is all data driven; it allows managers to make decisions on the data.”

At first, many students were unsure how the training could be applied to their everyday jobs in supporting warfighting efforts. However, by the end of the week long course, they were able to see how the knowledge could be utilized. One of those students was Staff Sgt. Nicholas B. Hiddemen, a Marine Air-Ground Task Force planner assigned to Headquarters Marine Forces North.

“It was good course,” said Hiddemen. “It offered up different tools I can use in order to help with any type of process and problem-solving.”

Hiddemen said they were provided with many graphs and charts that they could utilize to help find and solve problems. He already knows how he will apply Continuous Process Improvement principles to his specific billet.

“With my particular job (there are) a lot of different steps in every process,” he said. “I can take what I’ve learned here and (decrease) the amount of waste from the process to have (the process work) more proficiently.”

McLaurin said he plans to utilize the tool sets he learned to his administration job here. He said it should prove useful in increasing correspondence processing.

“Anytime you have correspondence at different levels there’s a slow-down process,” McLaurin said. “I can take these tools to speed up the process.”

• Date Taken: 02.28.2012
• Date Posted: 02.28.2012 10:18
• Story ID: 84428
• Location: NEW ORLEANS, LA, US