When it comes to organizational process improvement, Rachel L. Lapperre lives and breathes efficiency.
"I fundamentally believe that anything can be improved," she said. "Circumstances, technology, and requirements are always changing; there's always an opportunity for improvement."
Lapperre, a DA civilian, is a Joint Attack Munition Systems (JAMS) Project Office Improvement Specialist within the Program Executive Office Missiles and Space (PEO MS), and the only Army Certified Lean Six Sigma (LSS) Master Black Belt in PEO MS. Under her leadership of more than 50 JAMS LSS projects, Lapperre has been credited with $202.2 million in cost saving and avoidance--half of PEO MS' total savings achievement.
Lapperre believes that continuous process improvement fits hand in glove with any organization's strategic plan. "With today's budget constraints, all organizations need to focus on getting the most out of each dollar they receive. There are Soldiers in the field who are depending on us to do all we can to support them. For JAMS, strategically assessing our products and processes for opportunities for improvement and cost savings is key to identifying ways to continue providing the level of support our customers have come to expect from us."
DRAWN TO LSS
Lapperre, who calls herself an Air Force brat with ties to Texas, started her federal career as a U.S. Army Materiel Command Fellow. After completing the coursework for her Master of Science in business administration, she was a Logistics Item Manager for the Apache Avionics and Radar Division in the Integrated Materiel Management Center of the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command. She later rotated to a Program Analyst position in the JAMS Logistics Directorate.
"That was where I first received formal LSS training and went on to become the first certified Black Belt in PEO Missiles and Space," she said.
Lapperre became interested in LSS while doing her master's coursework. "It captured my attention and just made perfect sense to me. I began researching LSS and applying what I had learned, with some very good results. When formal LSS classes were offered at PEO MS, I jumped at the chance to learn more and become an official LSS practitioner."
After earning her degree, Lapperre rotated to the JAMS Program Integration Directorate. As the only Black Belt in PEO MS, she teaches LSS courses and mentors those who are pursuing their LSS Black and Green Belts. She encourages in them "a willingness to keep an open mind, listen to people, and follow the data." Lapperre also coordinates the JAMS Strategic Plan with the JAMS Better Buying Initiatives, Value Engineering, and LSS projects.
BAPTISM BY HELLFIRE
Her toughest LSS project, Lapperre said, was her very first: improving the reset process for the M299 and M272 HELLFIRE Missile Launcher in 2008. She traveled with the reset team to depot-level repair locations at Tennessee National Guard facilities; Boise, ID; and Fort Bragg, NC, working 12-hour days on average, six days a week, on the flight line.
"The project was difficult for me because it involved maintenance work, of which I had no previous experience," Lapperre explained. Ultimately, however, the long hours and steep learning curve brought success. With the reset team's help, she designed special tools to improve the cleaning and coating of launcher parts and a test bench that made testing launcher components easier and safer.
"I learned a lot about the reset program requirements and just how much the JAMS reset team must coordinate multiple variables to meet these requirements," Lapperre said. "The reset project was where I first applied the LSS tools I learned about in the classroom to real-life situations."
Her efforts also produced a greater-than-anticipated savings. "Rachelle had a 20 percent cycle time [target] reduction at the outset," said Frank DeLuca, PEO MS' Assistant Program Executive Officer for Strategic Planning and Operations. "She actually came up with a 25 percent reduction and an annual cost avoidance of $94,000. She changed the flow of the operation to optimize the solution set. Basically, she sat down with the workers and asked them, 'Why are you doing that?' "
Thanks to Lapperre's achievements with the HELLFIRE Launcher reset project, the JAMS LSS Program received the award for Outstanding Performance of a Continuous Process Improvement Team from the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology in 2008. The JAMS Project Office, which has been nominated every year since the award's inception, also won in 2009 for its HELLFIRE Captive Carry LSS Project.
Other JAMS Project Office honors include Level I and II awards from the Alabama Quality Award program in 2010 and 2011, respectively, and an iSixSigma Largest-Breakthrough Improvement Project award for customer service in 2010.
EFFICIENCIES EVERYWHERE
Even off the job, Lapperre's instincts for doing things better are at work. Deeply dedicated to the JAMS family and the community of Redstone Arsenal, AL, Lapperre is involved with the JAMS Family Readiness Group and is a productive member of the JAMS fundraising teams. For the 2011 Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) and 2012 Army Emergency Relief (AER) programs, she helped JAMS exceed its fundraising goals by 40 and 71 percent, respectively.
"I'm always looking at ways to improve things, including fundraising efficiency and effectiveness. The ladies and gentlemen who work with me on the JAMS CFC and AER fundraising teams feel the same. I think that's why JAMS has been able to far exceed its fundraising goals each year," she said.
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