In a nod to their process improvement successes, the Louisiana National Guard and the U.S. Amy Futures Command received awards for Lean Six Sigma Excellence, furthering a rich history of Lean Six Sigma in the armed forces.
In the face of constrained resources, the Louisiana National Guard couldn’t reduce its level of readiness, but it could reduce its waste. So, to maximize efficiency potential, they employed Lean Six Sigma under the leadership of civil-military planning senior enlisted advisor, Sgt. Maj. David M. Mula.
“Our original goal was to reduce man-hours and travel expenditures 30%, Mula told KALB News in an interview. “We actually achieved a reduction of man-hours by 41% and travel costs by 71%. This equated to annual labor savings of $366,000 and travel of $45,000, which over a six-year period is $2,200,000 and $280,000 respectively.”
The group was honored for this work at the 11th annual Army Lean Six Sigma Excellence Awards Program (LEAP) ceremony at the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 2019. The awards honor teams for applying continuous process improvement and Lean Six Sigma methodologies to transform processes, and just 14 organizations were honored with the awards from among 37 nominations.
Lean Six Sigma Cost Savings
The Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC), a subordinate command within Army Futures, also received a LEAP award for a process improvement project in the team category. The team operates the second-largest Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) on the East Coast.
Lean Six Sigma helped transform the facility, directly reducing labor by 30%, achieving nearly total accountability for hand-receipt holders, boosting inventory and equipment turn-ins by 76% and improving inventory compliance and space efficiency by 84%.
“Our work informs the decisions of multi-million-dollar programs of record. If we’re developing and integrating intelligence capabilities for a system, we don’t need to lose two or three days because we’re not tracking that a piece of equipment is sitting on the loading dock,” Michael J. Lombardi, deputy director for CERDEC I2WD, said in a U.S. Army news report.
Lean Six Sigma in the Military
The armed forces have been realizing success with Lean Six Sigma for years, cultivating a culture of process improvement and realizing substantial cost savings, efficiency and speed as a result.
Mula’s award-winning project wasn’t the Louisiana National Guard’s first foray into Lean Six Sigma implementation. With personnel trained by Master Black Belts, one group within the Louisiana National Guard boosted dental readiness by 30%, and collectively worked to speed up vehicle maintenance while cutting costs.
In 2013, the Army realized almost $1 billion in savings thanks to 10 units and project teams within the U.S. Army – all recognized as LEAP Winners and dispersed across the Army with various process improvement projects.
The U.S. Army has become one of the most vocal champions of Lean Six Sigma, training experts in the process and emphasizing its value with an awards program for more than a decade.
