PENTAGON, Washington D.C. (October 7, 2016) -- The CECOM Logistics and Readiness Center (LRC) was one of 10 Army organizations recognized for excellence in Lean Six Sigma practices by Acting Undersecretary of the Army Eric K. Fanning at a recent ceremony held at the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes for the 2014 Army Lean Six Sigma Excellence Awards Program, known as LEAP.
LRC's Allison Waltsak, a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, accompanied by Lane Collie, Director, LRC, accepted the award for the Non-Enterprise Level Black Belt Project Team Award category. Waltsak was the lead for the project entitled "Streamlining the Acquisition Requirements Package (ARP) Process."
Waltsak, under the sponsorship of LRC Associate Director, Gary Salomon, led a team comprised of members of the LRC's Lean Six Sigma team, the Logistics and Engineering Operations Directorate, Acquisition Support Branch, CECOM Legal Office, Army Contracting Command -- APG and the Defense Logistics Agency. Their goal - improve the ARP cycle time from over 515 days to 180 days with a stretch goal of 150.
Long lead times negatively affect scheduling and funding within the LRC and have also resulted in late deliveries to the warfighter, which ultimately jeopardize their safety and efficiency on the frontlines. The long cycle times were due in part to the loss of ARP process knowledge which resulted from the transitioning and loss of staff from Fort Monmouth to Aberdeen Proving Ground under BRAC 2005. The anticipated improvement in cycle time was 65%. Analysis showed that the rework loops which were initiated downstream in the ARP process were caused by problems in the upstream steps of the ARP process. A key takeaway is that poor acquisition strategy upstream leads to problems and rework downstream.
Two key elements of the new process was the development of a reengineered Collaborative Acquisition Strategy Session (CASS) and an ARP Document Review Session (DRS). In addition, a new SharePoint 2010-based solution, the Acquisition Requirements Management System (ARMS), replaced the Contracting Opportunities Online and Engineering Support Tools (COOLEST) system to facilitate the reengineered ARP workflow.
The efforts of Waltsak and her team reducing ARP cycle time resulted in faster delivery times to the warfighter, with some ARPs having been successfully completed through ARMS in 120 days, and millions of dollars of financial benefits to the Army. This was CECOM's fifth LEAP Project Team Award since the award program was established seven years ago.
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