LSS Project Helps CAAA with Manufacturing Overtime Management

CRANE, Ind. -- A Crane Army Ammunition Activity employee completed a Black Belt Lean Six Sigma project designed to improve manufacturing overtime management by reducing indirect overtime usage.

The goal of the project, completed by CAAA Manufacturing and Engineering Director Dr. Scott Haraburda last year, was to reduce indirect overtime usage from 617 to less than 500 labor hours per pay period.

According to Haraburda, "The project, when it was finished, was a great success because the goals were met and kept on schedule. Additionally, it resulted in a Type II -- cost avoidance of more than $587,000."

The project required using detailed process mapping and basic statistics to analyze the overtime process. Brainstorming and benchmarking were the primary tools involved in developing solutions. The scope of the project included all programs and processes using indirect overtime within the ME directorate of CAAA. This project included usage of the information processes in the newly implemented Logistics Modernization Program.

The team assembled to carry out the project consisted of five manufacturing managers, two business professionals and about ten production controllers. It was made up of personnel from CAAA.

The project team developed an improvement to the overtime approval process by establishing a budget of indirect overtime hours per cost center and requiring justification of overtime work in excess of that budgeted amount. The pilot lasted ten weeks allowing the cost center managers to implement the new process and work out any bugs.

CAAA was established in Oct. 1977 and is a subordinate of the Joint Munitions Command. The Army activity maintains ordnance professionals and infrastructure to receive, store, ship, produce, renovate and demilitarize conventional ammunition, missiles and related components.

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