PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. (May 27, 2015) -- Questions regarding evacuation procedures and workforce safety were common during a town hall on May 26 for Picatinny Arsenal's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC).
While senior leaders responded with several ways to improve the arsenal's safety procedures, one main area that needs refining is how the installation communicates with the workforce, senior leaders said.
The Everbridge notification system and Picatinny's Facebook page are two primary ways to keep updated with the installation during incidents, said Lt. Col. Ingrid Parker, Picatinny Garrison Commander, urging everyone to sign up for Everbridge.
The questions stemmed from the arsenal's March 18 incident, which left two ARDEC employees injured. The employees, explosives technicians, were conducting a routine study and inspection on a small explosive sub-munition to render it inert (not able to react).The sub-munition was one of several bomblets that was loaded within an artillery-type carrier projectile.
One employee has fully recovered and returned to the arsenal. The other employee remains in physical therapy, but is expected back in June.
In addition to these lessons learned, John Hedderich, director of ARDEC, shared the results from an ARDEC self-assessment survey distributed earlier this year.
The survey divided participants into two groups (employees or supervisors) and asked each person to reflect on ARDECs progress, commenting on how it currently performs and where the organization can improve. The questions covered seven categories, including strategic planning, leadership, customer focus, measurement, analysis and knowledge management, as well as operation focus and business results.
While the overall results demonstrated that ARDEC was performing well, it also indicated that there are opportunities for improvement. Building trust, improving workforce morale, leading by example, and communicating mission priorities were four of the main improvement areas.
"We're going to need your help," said Hedderich about these opportunities. "We're going to put together focus groups, so that we can gain some stability on what we want to improve. We have all created this environment. So, we all have to fix it together too."
Continuing to look toward the future, Hedderich also announced that ARDEC is now under the Department of the Army's pilot program, Manage Workforce to Workload (MW2). The MW2 program provides ARDEC with the flexibility to manage its workforce and lifts all the hiring restrictions for its reimbursable funded positions.
Due to this change, ARDEC expects to employ 269 new hires by the end of this year, primarily recruiting new engineers, scientists and engineering technicians. In the following fiscal year, ARDEC plans to hiring for other positions as well.
Hedderich underscored the importance of Sexual Harassment / Assault Response Prevention training and Master Resiliency training, which focuses on helping employees overcome stress and adversity as well as adapt to change.
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The Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to develop technology and engineering solutions for America's Soldiers.
RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. AMC is the Army's premier provider of materiel readiness -- technology, acquisition support, materiel development, logistics power projection, and sustainment -- to the total force, across the spectrum of joint military operations. If a Soldier shoots it, drives it, flies it, wears it, eats it or communicates with it, AMC provides it.
Related Links:
U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) homepage
U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) homepage
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