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Showing posts from 2015

DMADV for Travel Claims

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The Navy's annual budget for Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves is roughly $800 million. That sounds like a lot of money until you consider the scope and size of the effort. Between 110,000 and 160,000 PCS travel claims are processed each year. These claims include various allowances for time in training, family relocation, temporary lodging, and house hunting. Because the Navy relies on rotational duty assignments by design and Sailors are entitled to PCS-related compensation by law, the expenses associated with PCS moves are a predictable cost of doing business. However, the speed and accuracy of travel claim settlements has a significant impact on the operational availability of funds during the execution year. Adequate funds to safely cover all PSC-related expenses are obligated in advance of travel, and these funds must be held in abeyance until the travel claim is settled once travel is completed. Any excess obligations can then be de-obligated and used to fund

Telling a Good Story

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I recently came across a fantastic news story in one of our process improvement efforts. Unfortunately, the effort and accomplishment was not fully appreciated -- due in part to the way the information was presented. Month after month, we presented the change as an unadorned bar chart. The bar chart showed clear improvements, but the sense of story was lacking. After working with the team, we applied three recommendations to improve how the information was communicated. 1. We added control limits to the chart to convey a sense of context. How do we know when something changed? When the line breaks the control limits, something has changed. 2. We decided to show both the meter (the # of expired LIMDU PRDs) and the levers (the actions we had taken to influence change). 3. We made the math easy. Senior leadership no longer needs to calculate the size of the impact or guess; we spelled out the accomplishment explicitly.

Measures of Performance: A Losing Record with a Winning Spirit

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How do you measure performance in a recreational league? Do you take into account bad umpires who don't seem to know the rules of the game? Does your assessment take into account teams from competitive leagues who stay sharp in the off-season by playing in a recreational league? Do the league mandated priorities of first fun, second learning, third winning play any role? Although we have one game remaining, we will end this season with a losing record (currently, we are 1-7-1). However, we started the season with 5 of 14 players who had significant problems hitting a pitched ball. At our last game, every player on our roster got a hit. We started the season with 7 of 14 players who did not understand the basic flow of the game or how to get the other team out. At our last game, we held a very good team to two points in the first inning (a significant accomplishment for our team). Everyone plays both infield and outfield. Everyone has improved. Our defensive play as a tea

Building Demand for Black Belts

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Because our deployment strategy has focused on developing bottom-up support for Continuous Process Improvement, we have been very deliberate about making gradual training investments. Initially, we focused on yellow belt and champion training with the role of "belt" for improvement projects supported from CPI program resources. As our trained population of yellow belts and champions grew, we began training green belts and broadening the base of belt leadership for projects. After three years of building, we felt it was finally time to invest in black belt training to expand the leadership team for the CPI program. This photo represents the first group to complete the 160 hour black belt training curriculum using our own instructors.

The Concept of "Process Entitlement" Drives Record Performance

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During Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt training, we introduce the concept of "process entitlement" as a way to drive record performance. Using a simple process simulation with building blocks to make pyramids, we lead a class discussion on what level of performance would be possible if the process was perfect. Perfect is defined as no waste, no variation, no constraints, etc. Collectively, we arrive at a general consensus of the natural physical limits of the process -- the maximum number of pyramids that could be constructed in a 5 minute production period. Then we steer the discussion toward the topic of, "What would have to be different to produce at a rate equivalent to the natural physical limit?" At some point during this discussion, we challenge the students with concepts such as Takt time and process metrics. Then, we reveal the current world record and set production goals somewhere above the current record and below the maximum number possible. The record see