HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- Your brand new widget arrives from your favorite store, but it arrives broken. What do you do? You take it back to the store and the store gives you a brand new widget -- but this is not always the case for our Soldiers in the field. Getting a part replaced can sometimes be a long and cumbersome process involving forms, the launch of an investigation, and multiple approvals.
Army Materiel Command's Continuous Process Improvement Division gathered more than 30 quality assurance specialists for the first time to collaborate and fix issues just like this, Sept. 9-12.
"The event was a win-win to provide training to careerists and practical solutions to ongoing issues," said Kathleen Leonard, team leader in Product Assurance.
The CPI Division also has the responsibilities for both the quality assurance specialists and the Army Quality program.
"We want our customers to have a quick turnaround, because when they don't, it impacts the mission, it impacts readiness," Leonard said. "Currently, when a Soldier in the field receives a defective part in the field, the Army's Product Quality Deficient Report process begins. This process initiates either a replacement part or a refund."
The Value Stream Analysis training event brought together a diverse group of Army civilians from AMC life cycle management commands, program executive offices and industrial depots and arsenals to identify ways to improve this process.
AMC Lean Six Sigma master black belts Nicole Buzello, Kathleen Leonard and Mike Trent provided training on VSA fundamentals and facilitated a practical exercise that mapped the PQDR process.
"This process is critical to ensuring that the materiel and weapons systems used by the joint war fighter are ready, safe and reliable," Leonard said. "Eventually, we want to get to a state where we can immediately replace items like shoppers across the world do."
Further, by jointly mapping the PQDR process, participants were able to exchange best practices and collaborate on enhancements to PQDR procedures, standards and policy.
"We were also able to identify several quick wins by eliminating no value added steps," Leonard said.
For example, any place in the process that required additional reviews, the team automatically eliminated, which ultimately improved efficiency and effectiveness of the process, she explained.
"Ultimately, this is all about the war fighter," said Susan Cole, director of AMC's Continuous Process Improvement Division and functional lead for Career Program 15. "We provide equipment readiness to ensure our war fighters have the equipment needed and that it performs to standard, whether it is a training event or combat operation. The work of our quality and reliability specialist is very important. A war fighter's life may just depend on it,"
As the Army continues to rebalance and implement efficiencies, VSA is one more tool the Continuous Process Improvement Division is using to help leaders at every level identify and eliminate inefficiencies and procedural barriers.
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