McAlester, Okla - Lean Six Sigma (LSS), a proven method that the federal government uses to accelerate decision-making processes, has a new Master Black Belt (MBB) to help teach the continual improvement methods to fellow employees. John Pelzel, 29 year federal employee, received his MBB Certification June 2011.
You may ask what does a MBB do? The MBB is the organization's expert for disseminating knowledge and training/coaching MBB, Black Belts and Green Belts candidates. The MBB provides direction and guidance on the application of LSS methods to the organization's Senior Leadership, Process Owners, Project Sponsors, and Project Members.
"Being a MBB allows me the opportunity to work with different processes and see the people involved in these processes gain enthusiasm and an understanding of how continual improvement is beneficial to their jobs and the United States Government," expressed Pelzel.
"Continual improvement has been an interest of mine since I was in the service," Pelzel. He first gained his love for continual improvement during his service time in the Air Force. "I discovered that identifying problems was much more satisfying if you could provide different avenues to improve what was not working the way it is intended with data to support your recommendations."
After four years in the Air Force and four years to obtain a Bachelors Degree in Secondary Education and Mathematics, Pelzel entered the Quality Assurance Specialist (Ammunition Surveillance), QASAS program in 1986. "Looking at processes involving ammunition and ammunition operations and recommending improvements based on acquired and historical data was exactly what I wanted," Pelzel explained.
In 2001, Pelzel was tasked along with Mark Haring, to lead a team of DAC employees to obtain ISO 9001 registration for DAC. By 2002, DAC was registered as an ISO 9001-2000 compliant organization. Also during this time, Pelzel, obtained his Certification as a Lead Quality Auditor and LSS Green Belt Certificate.
Pelzel, continued his LSS adventure, receiving his Black Belt (BB) Certificate in 2005, and was afforded the opportunity to pursue MBB Certification. Before this could be pursued, Department of Army (DA) implemented LSS, and required all candidates to become DA Certified BB.
Pelzel's project for Black Belt focused on the building of the Demil Enterprise with PM Demil. The project involved the identification of a method to communicate and manage all the different offices involved in the Demil Enterprise. "Final results were the best approach to develop a Management Plan for the PM Demil," explained Pelzel. "This project followed the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) Methodology of Lean Six Sigma. "
To receive MBB certification, Pelzel accepted a tasking to deploy for Army Materiel Command to fill a position within the Responsible Reset Task Force (R2TF), in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, October 2009 through Apr 2010. Pelzel served as the Lean Six Sigma representative for the R2TF cell. "My position was identified to provide an in depth analysis of critical mission requirements and to provide recommendations for improvement opportunities based on the analysis," explained Pelzel.
The primary purpose of his tour dealt with the movement of equipment through the Redistribution Property Assistance Team (RPAT). The project involved an end-to-end analysis of the RPAT yards to reduce the "Time in Yard" for rolling stocks. Accomplishments of the project took it from an average of 32 days to less than 12 days; second, effectiveness of the Material Release Orders (MROs) process used within the RPAT yards. The goal was to reduce the process cycle time to work MROs from 17 days to under 3 days; Third project was a Rapid Improvement Event (RIE) mapping the DRMO process. The process map is being used to lay down the path looking at a very complicated process for conducting the 15-6 Investigation in Iraq and Kuwait.
"It was an enterprise wide project as it involved two different services and many different organizations with this deployment because it was very involved and encompassed many different variables," said Pelzel. "My hat is off to everyone I worked with during deployment, they were patient and wanted to hear every possible solution, so we could discover the best solution given their situations."
"As a MBB, Pelzel is positioned to help drive the DAC continuous improvement program into the future ensuring our customers get the best support in the most effective and efficient manner possible," said Gary Carney, DAC Director.
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