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Focus on LAI
Plenary
LAI
Accelerates Lean Across the Enterprise
Web Exclusive:
Lessons Learned
Practitioners Share Insights about Enterprise Change
Changing
the practices and cultures of large organizations takes leadership, momentum,
and time, yet accelerating change was the theme of the 2004 Lean
Aerospace Initiative (LAI) plenary.
Some 230 industry and government partners gathered with LAI researchers
March 23-24 in Dana Point, Calif., to share their experiences of change-in-progress
at "Lean Enterprise Transformation: Making It Happen."
Air
Force-sponsored Lean Now initiative, discussed in this breakout session
led by Raytheon's Robert Blair, focuses on enterprise-level actions.
The
plenary began with keynote addresses by LAI leaders from MIT, the Army,
Navy, Air Force and industry who described lean successes and challenges.
Breakout sessions focused on topics ranging from industry-government infrastructure
to revitalizing systems engineering. Day-long working groups ran before
and after the two-day meeting.
Professor
Deborah Nightingale, LAI co-director, said that LAI's growing body of
knowledge and tools is focused on leaping from lean manufacturing successes
in isolation into broad cultural changes that can vitalize large organizations.
Enterprise-wide change ratchets up the need for leadership commitment,
systematic application, and feedback systems that permit organizations
to continuously learn and change.
"The
whole consortium is the laboratory for doing research and creating knowledge
and products together," Nightingale said. "That knowledge gets
converted into products we can use. Then we focus on how to deploy that
knowledge in your organization. What are the lessons learned and how does
that feed back in the cycle? We are starting to see incredible results."
These
results include dramatic performance improvements in Air Force Lean Now!
projects, a growing body of lean guides including the new Supplier Networks
Transformation Toolset, the Education Networks' Lean Academy, and the
Game, also called the Lean Enterprise Value Training Simulation. A pilot
project has grown into a new strategic partnership at Ogden Air Logistics
Center at Hill Air Force Base in Utah and a new project is kicking off
with the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center.
Army
Transforms for Speed, Not Weight
Maj. Gen Ross Thompson, head of the U.S. Army's Tank-Automotive and Armaments
Command, said the Army's current transformation of processes and culture
is aimed at these goals: responsiveness, deployability, agility, versatility,
lethality, survivability, and sustainability.
"The
Cold War was about weight -– about being big versus being small,"
Thomson said in his keynote. "The era of globalization is about speed
– it's about being fast versus being slow."
Thompson
said the Army is focusing on these transformational capabilities:
- Joint
interdependency with other military branches;
-
Change from division to brigade-based army, i.e. the modular army;
-
Restructuring the force mix to involve more engineers and civil affairs
units;
-
Stabilize the force by lengthening post assignments to four-six years
and rotating units, not individuals;
-
Equip the force by designing around solders as the ultimate system.
Thompson's
Army Materiel Command (AMC) unit has racked up a string of success stories
since beginning the lean journey in 2002. In one example, the command
spent $2.8 million on lean training for the Picatinny L/6s ammo + armament
project and has saved $2.2 billion so far, with a projected lifecycle
savings of $22 billion.
The
AMC is using multiple methodologies to transform operations to serve their
ultimate customer. “Our customer is the joint war fighter, not the
DOD comptroller community. We’ve spent too much time focusing on
DOD.”
How
Lean Helped Boeing Unite
Dr.
Thad Sandford, vice president of the Boeing Company who served 26 years
in the Air Force, said lean principles and practices have been essential
both to meeting customers' needs and to the coherence of the company itself.
"We
are reforming ourselves to help our customers reform themselves,"
Sandford said. "And we are managing change in our company and we
supporting the kind of change that’s going on in the Army today."
Boeing's
own transformation has been substantial. From 1994 to 2000, Boeing bought
the space and defense business of Rockwell, McDonnell, and Hughes space
and communications. "We wanted to provide the best in the industry
even if that meant going outside the company. Instead of keeping them
as separate, successful businesses, we decided to integrate them."
Boeing's
revenue jumped from $22 billion in 1994 to an estimated $52 billion in
2004 after the mergers. Today the company has 156,000 employees in the
U.S. and 70 other countries and 6,450 suppliers.
"Lean
has been extraordinary tool," Sandford said. "Once we decided
how to transform, we had to prepare so we used the LESAT tools and trainings.
We did a lean assessment across each organization and the Value Stream
Mapping that allows us to get a focus on cost quality,"
Boeing's
lean results recently earned Malcolm Balridge National Quality awards
for C-17 and aerospace, honors presented by President George Bush.
Navy's
AIRspeed Zeros in on Cost-Wise Readiness
The U.S. Navy is facing major challenges recapitalizing the fleet, which
include goals such as reducing aircraft carrier personnel by 1,000 people
per ship. For the first time, RDML Michael Bachman said in his keynote,
the Navy needs to adopt a business approach to war fighting. The Navy
adopted the Naval Aviation Readiness Integrated Improvement program (NAVRIIP)
to push improvements in maintenance, repairs, and replenishment on a large
scale. AIRSpeed is the internal process responsible for developing and
instituting cost-wise readiness across the naval aviation enterprise.
AIRSpeed combines lean and other best business practices with an enterprise
approach while improving support for war fighters.
“This
is revolutionary for operations to be focused on cost. This wasn't even
on our senior leaders minds' a year ago," Bachman said. " Our
aging aircraft are consuming a lot of asset. Airspeed teams will redesign
the repair and replenishment processes."
Bachman
said all flags and wing commanders were required to engage in Value Stream
Mapping. The results were clear. "We can’t afford to have this
much waste in our business processes."
The
Navy has had some great successes with AIRSpeed, Bachman said. At the
Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 26 in New River, N.C., for example,
the command reduced average delivery time of parts from 108 to 25 minutes
and reduced repair time from nine days to one day.
Why
Does the Air Force Need to Transform?
"There is no safe harbor for us to live in or work in," said
Dr. Daniel Stewart, U.S. Air Force Senior Executive Service?, in his keynote.
"We have processed five wars in 13 years and they are 360 degree
wars - we never know where its coming from. We have the most powerful
air and space force in the world, but it not enough. The war fighter needs
us to doing it faster. We cannot afford to be a SWAT team – we need
to be more agile and more responsive on repeatable basis. This is the
challenge. We are great at heroics, but not as good at standard repeatable
processes."
Stewart
said the goals of core business transformation are agile acquisition and
sustainment. Early results using the purchasing and supply chain management
framework enabled supply chain redesign that resulted in these improvements:
weapon system availability improved by 20 percent; total supply chain
cost reduce by 20 percent; end-to-end cycle time reduced by 50 percent.
LAI
is a key player, Stewart said. "The real challenge is integrating
this stuff across the various functional and business domains. We need
to keep maturing the tool sets from an enterprise standpoint."
Web Exclusive
Lessons Learned:
Practitioners Share Insights about Enterprise Change
Maj. Gen.
Kevin Sullivan, USAF, Commander, Ogden Air Logistic Center
- Senior leaders
involvement and understanding is essential.
- Don’t assume
that you understand how you do business today – map it.
- Change management
may be the biggest challenge.
Lisa Kohl,
Vice President, Northrop Grumman Space Technology
- Active leadership
engagement cannot be delegated.
- Measure results.
We measure what we care about.
- Do not underestimate
change management in transformation. People do not inherently like change.
Thomas A.
Pinski, International Association of Machinist and Aerospace
Workers, District 837, High Performance Work Organization Coordinator
- Weather the transformation
change to create a better ship and crews.
- Strategic diamond
cutters and day-to-day stone cutters are both needed.
- Change starts
with a hand grenade and ends with strategic strike capability.
- Identify and recognize
the heroes.
- Deliver the right
resources at the right time in the right place.
Christopher
B. Cool, Vice President, Integrated Systems Sector, Northrop
Grumman
- Senior leaders
must buy-in and be personally involved.
- Integrate the
lean approach into strategic and business objectives.
- Consistency is
the key. Have a few repeatable messages and don’t vary.
Col. William
A. Guinn, U.S. Army
- Think BIG. Big
visions yield big results.
- Direct leader
involvement is mandatory.
- Tactical victories
are easier – but strategic victories are required.
- Without total enterprise
involvement you have lean-lite.
Visit the
LAI web site for more information.
By Nancy DuVergne
Smith
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