TOBYHANNA ARMY DEPOT, Pa. -- Each year, Tobyhanna Army Depot partners with the United States Military Academy - West Point (New York) Department of Systems Engineering to provide a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt project for cadets to work on during their senior year.
During a visit on Nov. 24, four West Point cadets focused on the Measure Phase of the Mobile Depot Maintenance (MDM) shipping process.
Lean is a program of continuous improvement based on eliminating unnecessary steps in a process, such as rearranging an area to improve work flow and increase efficiency. Lean also involves Value Stream Analysis to identify what can be improved.
The cadets created a process map to understand how the products are identified, ordered, packed and shipped, and a spaghetti diagram to visually show how the packages moved throughout the entire process, all with the help of depot and DLA/Distribution Tobyhanna subject matter experts.
Jennifer Condrad, industrial engineering technician in the Continuous Process Improvement Directorate, said the visits are beneficial for both the cadets and depot personnel.
"Having a fresh set of eyes on the process helps remove a lot of bias when determining the root cause of the problem," she said.
The cadets are in the process of analyzing data they collected for the Measure Phase and will return in late January to work on the Analyze Phase.
Above from left, Cadet Andrew Carstensen, Condrad and Cadet Richard Nehring identify the rework loop in the MDM process if a shipment arrives on-site missing any required materials.
Tobyhanna Army Depot is a recognized leader in providing world-class logistics support for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Systems across the Department of Defense. Tobyhanna's Corporate Philosophy, dedicated work force and electronics expertise ensure the depot is the Joint C4ISR provider of choice for all branches of the Armed Forces and industry partners.
Social Sharing