Driving Efficiency at the Battalion Level

Figure 1. Lean’s 8 Wastes as defined by authors (U.S. Army Graphic)

Army leaders have a duty and vested interest in running their organizations efficiently. This article is a compilation of various techniques to drive efficien­cy within a battalion, organized along Lean’s 8 Wastes categories. Regularly used in manufacturing and office envi­ronments, Lean’s 8 Wastes categorize ineffective use of resources and can be used by Army leaders looking to maxi­mize the output of their units. Leaders can then reinvest the rewards in ben­efits across their people, training and equipment.

Defects

Quality Control. Commanders must determine who is validating the work performed within their organization accounting for incentive structures. An individual validating his own work presents an incentive structure that may produce defects. The leader man­aging the troops to task should also be inspecting the work, particularly for maintenance teams. Battalions should require their platoon leaders to vali­date the faults listed on the platoon’s equipment maintenance and inspec­tion worksheet (5988-E), ensuring the quality of crew preventive mainte­nance checks and services (PMCS) and educating the platoon leaders on the technical aspect of their equipment. Ideally all work performed, even at the individual level, will have an external evaluator. A battalion can designate subject matter experts to host training or quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) for the entire battalion to im­prove quality. Units must design qual­ity checks to capture the actual status of the system being tested, i.e. a mis­sion command system may turn on but not able to communicate to the net­work.

Manuals, Publications, and Diagrams. Work instruction documents within units must have both breadth and depth throughout the formation as their use reduces costly errors. Ensur­ing instruction documents are in the right place at the right time requires efforts from the publications manager, usually the S1, Maintenance Support Device (MSD) manager, often the S6, and individual staff members. Physical libraries should be located within each company, particularly for training ma­terials. Units should anticipate order­ing new rolling stock manuals each fis­cal year to account for updates and document degradation. Public releas­able manuals should be distributed as widely as possible via electronic means, often by company executive of­ficers (XOs). The MSD manager should include the MSD status in the Battal­ion’s communication situation report (COMSTAT). Individual staff members should design diagrams and flow charts for tasks. Large printing can be completed via the brigade’s geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) section or instal­lation print shop. A battalion’s motor pool should have diagrams depicting vehicle dispatching, parts accountabil­ity, oil disposal, and other common tasks. Companies should have soldier skill level 10 tasks publicly depicted, sourced through installation Training Aid Support Centers (TASCs) or unit generated.

Overproduction

Products for One. Commanders need to push their staff to produce products that drive action, tell the staff what you want. Products intended only for a commander, often tied to decision making or informing, waste time if these products can’t be directly issued to subordinates. Commanders and staff should become practiced in exam­ining options based on bed rock prod­ucts i.e. Long-Range Training Calen­dars, Common Operating Picture, and Mission Command Systems. Ideally battalion products should be “pocket­able” one sheet of paper front and back, one swipe of the phone. Getting draft products to a commander for feedback early and often via battle rhythm events can save hours of time. Commanders are ultimately responsi­ble for what their unit’s output and should focus their staff’s efforts ac­cordingly.

Waiting

Time on Tasks. Commanders and plan­ners should maximize the amount of time Soldiers spend on value adding task(s) compared to the total time in­vested into an event. Waiting in the military can be broken down into the following categories: waiting for a pro­cess to start, waiting your turn, waiting on movement to another task. No­where is this more manifested than range day for a unit, usually spans an entire workday, and only produces about 20-40 minutes of trigger time per individual. Units need to identify the bottlenecks in their activities and then optimize those bottlenecks until they reach a point beyond their control i.e. the physical space at a range. Train­ing timetables, continuous transporta­tion, alternative training events, and consolidation of training events all can be employed to reduced waiting time. Commanders can drive efficiency through their battle rhythm events. Production control meetings and oper­ation sync meetings should specifically address management of limited re­courses and bottlenecks.

Non-Utilized Talent

Schooling to Master Level. Commands must task to fill master level producing school regardless of individual hesitan­cy or operational demands. Schools such as master gunner, master drive, master fitness, and master marksmen instructor should always be filled. Units should prioritize individuals with a propensity to pass and retainability, not seniority. Individuals in a skill iden­tifier coded position should be sent without option. Qualified individuals should be sent regardless of their gen­eral desires. Many individuals have anxiety over attending high visibility schools. Commands should prioritize and slot these individuals anyway; a set school date will reduce procrasti­nation. Even individuals who fail will bring back knowledge that will gener­ate improvements at the platoon or company level.

Qualifying Expiring Crews. Individuals scheduled to depart the unit during the qualification window, normally 270 days, should be removed from the fir­ing line. Their participation as firing members in gunnery has a cooling ef­fect on the subordinates that would advance to fill their space. Senior in­dividuals scheduled to depart the unit should be utilized as trainers, quality control inspectors, and training sup­port during the gunnery cycle. Evalua­tion reports should not penalize an in­dividual for not being offered a chance of qualifying on a crew due to a perma­nent change of station (PCS) window. Company 1SGs and the Battalion CSM are critical to enforcing this through accurate management of troops to seat rosters. The battalion commander must validate crew rosters a minimum of quarterly and provide top cover to company leaders when their members are removed from the gunline.

Transportation

Combat Load Plans. Underloaded or improperly loaded combat platforms generate future unnecessary demand on combat trains. Most modern mili­tary vehicles can easily accommodate over a week of food and water for their occupants, especially once they are re­lieved of their full combat ammunition carrying requirements such as during a combat training center (CTC). Design­ers should examine the historical re­cord for the load plans of the 2003 Iraq invasion. Units can build further effi­ciency by designating vehicles as spe­cialty carriers for common parts and all vehicles should maximize their use of combat spares. Load plans should be enforced consistently to build habits and prevent loss. Securing components separate from vehicles encourages loss during movement, slows crew level maintenance, and risks those compo­nents being lost during mobility opera­tions, especially if the sea lanes are contested. Keep your vehicles loaded as combat ready as possible including during motor pool and mobility opera­tions, secondary loads are authorized for a reason.

Inventory

Excess Property. The Battalion S4 must drive property divestiture. Companies are busy and the nuances of specific in­dividual property divestitures leads to avoidance. Non modified table of orga­nization and equipment (MTOE) equip­ment not used on a deployment or during a complete training cycle should be divested. Centralizing divestitures within the S4 with a weekly battalion (BN) XO review during a logistics syn­chronization (LOGSYNC) meeting en­ables efficiency of efforts, setting of priorities and sharing of lessons learned. Every company commander should appoint an additional duty sup­ply officer, who is not the executive of­ficer. The supply officer should have two primary goals, forecasting equip­ment orders and supervising divesti­ture of excess. The Battalion S4 non-commissioned officer-in-charge (NCO­IC) should conduct monthly low-densi­ty training with company unit supply specialists (92Ys) ensuring current Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-A) processes and administrative procedures are adhered too. The dives­titure process should be continuous with dedicated clean sweeps incorpo­rated into mobility operations, if you didn’t take it on deployment, you prob­ably don’t need it.

Motion

Form Determines Function. Setting the office layout is critical in ensuring op­timal administration. The Army’s pro­pensity to move around and operate in environments of various austerity can produce suboptimal working spaces. While each battalion is unique in terms of staff skill, members personalities, mobility needs, and space available, benefits can be reaped via establishing an optimized workspace layout. Battal­ions should follow some common prin­ciples when considering their adminis­tration layout. War Fighting Functions should be established to collaborate internally and externally, preventing in­formation “stovepipes”. Doctrinally the staff is consolidated into the Main Command Post (CP) and a smaller Tac­tical Command Post (TAC).1 A physical­ly consolidated battalion main CP is not always practical, in these cases an op­erations and sustainment split with in­formation link(s) is a possible arrange­ment. Regardless of the layout, junior soldiers should be within direct obser­vation of a leader, accommodations similar among grades, and consider­ations should be made for extreme in­troverts or extroverts.

Extra Processing

Workflow Management. Tasks should be operationalized into formats that enable rapid action, feedback, and en­ables the commander to make deci­sions. The traditional orders process via word processer files is manpower intensive. Subordinate feedback should be a semi-automated process via voice, email, or shared file arrangement. The contracted Microsoft suite of tools pro­vides several options for automating workflow management such as Share­Point Excel, Planner, or Lists. These tools, integrated into Microsoft (MS) Teams allow for the assigning of tasks to individuals and provides a central­ized area for feedback. Units should use a centralized task tracker and sub­sequent trackers for detailed tasks such as command inspections. A sim­ple MS Teams excel document enables multiple users to collaborate, while re­placing or supplementing written or­ders.

Material Situation (MATSIT). Units should invest the upfront and quarter­ly inventory time to ensure their GCSS MATSIT is accurate for class II and class IX items. Accurate MATSITs save pro­cessing time by automatically ordering when stock falls below set levels. It provides hard data during consump­tion projections. The battalion mainte­nance officer and maintenance tech should have the responsibility to en­sure quarterly updates are made to the class IX MATSIT. The Battalion S4 offi­cer-in-charge (OIC) or NCOIC should supervise each supply room’s class II MATSIT. Further efficiencies can be gained by designative subordinate units as key items holders, such as the Forward Support Companies (FSCs) stocking paint supplies and subse­quently consolidating the storage re­quirements.

Conclusion

The combined arms battalion exists “to close with and destroy enemy forces using fire, maneuver, and shock effect or to repel their assault by fire and counterattack”.2 Commanders must create effective and efficient units if they are to accomplish this purpose. Applying a detailed analysis to gener­ate specific efficiencies within a unit will raise that organizations overall ef­fectiveness. Commanders must opti­mize workflows, eliminate bottlenecks and maximize the use of resources. Ef­ficiently run units instill pride in its members, and its savings can be rein­vesting into increasing lethality.

LTC Michael D. Hebert is a U.S. Army Armor Officer currently serving as the Commander of 1-68 AR, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT), 4th In­fantry Division (ID). He has previously served in Light, Stryker, and Heavy Cal­vary Formation, including deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Republic of Korea, and Poland. LTC Hebert’s military schools include U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI; Ranger, Pathfinder, Air­borne, and Calvary Leaders Course. He has a bachelor of arts from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA; and masters of arts from the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI.

MAJ Andrew T. Kilcer is a U.S. Army Ar­mor Officer currently serving as the Battalion executive officer for 1-68 Ar­mor, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. He has pre­viously served in Stryker and Tank for­mations, including deployments to Af­ghanistan, Republic of Korea, and Po­land. MAJ Kilcer’s military schools in­clude Command and General Staff Col­lege, Fort Leavenworth, KS; Maneuver Captains Carrer Course, Fort Benning, GA; Basic Officer Leader Course, Fort Knox, KY; Ranger and Calvary Leaders Course. He has a bachelor of science from Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY; and a masters of busi­ness administration from The Mason School of Business, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg VA.

Notes

1 ATP 3-90.5 Combined Arms Battalion, July 2021, Pages 2-6 to 2-7

2 ATP 3-90.5 Combined Arms Battalion, July 2021, Page 1-1