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FORT BELVOIR, Va. - Continuous process improvement and Lean Six Sigma practitioners from across the Defense Logistics Agency are closer to having a standard, consistent approach toward reducing waste after gathering for the second annual CPI practitioners’ training conference in Alexandria, Va., Nov. 15-17.
The conference was held to raise practitioners’ skill levels and to encourage the sharing of best practices, said Tammy Shelton, chief of DLA’s CPI branch.
“We’re really trying to standardize the way we use a variety of process improvement tools at DLA so that our leadership team has confidence in the results and the data that’s being presented to them for decision making regarding improvements and changes to the way we operate,” Shelton said.
Continuous process improvement is a structured problem-solving process that helps users see beyond a problem’s symptoms so they can find solutions.
“When you’ve got a number of subject matter experts together in a room and they’re trying to tackle a problem, if they don’t have a set of tools to attack it, it can be pretty unorganized. But when you enable people to look at things in a more structured way, you ensure that all the people trying to solve that problem are going in the same direction,” said George Shry, a Lean Six Sigma analyst on Shelton’s team.
In one training session, conference attendees learned how to dissect large processes to find the small part that needs action.
“When a leader says, ‘We think our preferred-vendor selection process isn’t working well, but we’re not sure; we got some complaints,’ it’s up to the CPI practitioner to wean that idea down to something actionable, executable and fixable,” Shelton said.
Attendees also got the opportunity to build a “value stream map,” which outlines a process from beginning to end so unnecessary steps become more obvious. While this is a basic skill, Shelton said many trained CPI practitioners don’t get the opportunity to use it unless they’re actively facilitating a project.
“Value stream maps allow you to see the processes you’re working with in a different way so you can find the areas where you’ve got a few too many handoffs, which may be leading to a waste of labor or money,” she said.
CPI practitioners saved the agency about $33 million in 2011, Shelton said, adding that CPI will become increasingly important in coming years as budgets continue to shrink.
“If I was a senior leader facing the budget cuts that we’re up against, I would want to have a way to make some positive decisions as to where I can cut without cutting into the bone of my operation,” she said. “CPI tools, as a consistent and standardized problem-solving methodology, bring in data that allows leaders to make those decisions that help them to operate more effectively even within budget constraints.”
Supply chain and distribution experts worked together recently to address about $221 million of non-issuable “litigated” inventory that was kept in depots primarily because it didn’t meet packaging and shipping requirements, said Adrienne McGeachy, a DLA Land and Maritime employee who led the CPI project.
Using CPI to analyze and solve the problem, McGeachy’s team cleared about $150 million of litigated inventory from DLA’s depots in 10 months, and it continues to seek solutions that minimize the amount of non-issuable material that DLA Distribution must store.
The project was such a success that Shelton said lessons learned from the experience are being used to eliminate misrouted stock. It also brought to attention problems with vendor compliance, so another CPI project will attempt to pinpoint why some inventory doesn’t meet military specifications, she added.
DLA began rolling out CPI three years ago with employee-awareness training throughout the agency’s headquarters and field activities. But training and experience have reached a level at which most CPI practitioners are ready to help leaders take better advantage of CPI, Shelton continued.
“As an organization, we’re maturing to the point where we’ve gone from deploying CPI tools to a broad group of practitioners across DLA to being ready to pass the torch so they have the responsibility of working directly with their leadership to make a difference,” Shelton said.
DLA has about 1,500 CPI practitioners who facilitate projects at primary-level field activities and DLA Headquarters.
“Most of our practitioners are doing this for their organizations on top of the normal assignments they have every day, but they’re making a big difference and helping the agency with virtually no recognition for that work,” she said.
There are currently 147 projects under way across DLA.
| Date Taken: | 11.22.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 11.22.2011 15:20 |
| Story ID: | 80436 |
| Location: | FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 153 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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