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Here’s another success story from the U.S. Army’s Lean Six Sigma program, increasing production to support troops in Iraq:
“When the call came in to deliver the door kits we were experiencing production rates twice as high as normal,” said
Randall Quinn , chief, Environmental Management Division. “Even though we didn’t build new facilities to accommodate increased production, instituting ‘lean’ manufacturing methods enabled us to meet the need of our Soldiers inIraq .”Lean manufacturing at Letterkenny is the result of the depot’s commitment to the Army’s
Lean Six Sigma management approach. The lean core team utilizes the kaizen and value stream analysis lean tools to discover and eliminate waste by reducing floor space, flow time and distance traveled as a means of increasing productivity. More than 80 percent of the workforce at Letterkenny has participated in at least oneLean Six Sigma rapid improvement event (RIE). RIEs are exercises designed to identify inefficiencies quickly and recommend immediate corrective action.
RIE’s appear to be a “kaizen event” driven approach. Beyond the initial improvements, I hope the site is also putting a lean management system in place, to make sure that they don’t “backslide” and lose their improvements. Driving improvement is impressive, and can be difficult, but putting a lasting, sustainable lean culture in place, driving continuous improvement, is even more difficult.
The article also talks about waste reduction and environmental impact.
About LeanBlog.org: Mark Graban is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “lean healthcare” methodology, focused on improving quality and patient safety, improving access, reducing costs, and fully engaging healthcare professionals. He is also the Chief Improvement Officer for KaiNexus.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
RIE is indeed a kaizen event under a different (i.e., less Japanese) name. It seems to be a better description anyway given the origin of the word “kaizen”.
Army RIEs borrow from six sigma project structure and follow an abbreviated DMAIC flow. As such, teams should develop an effective control plan to codify new processes and sustain gains.
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