Two of today’s improvement trends that make work faster (Lean) and better (Six Sigma) produce amazing results when combined—Lean Six Sigma.
U.S. Forces Korea banks on this methodology to work favorably for them as they transform and move troops onto a major military hub at Camp Humphreys. You can just imagine the logistics involved in this kind of movement.
Early this month, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock visited the Korean peninsula to check on the developments. During his visit, he was happy to know that the South Korean government and people were fully supporting the corps.
In an interview with The Stars and Stripes, Strock was asked how they would go about the “military construction transformation?”
It’s related to a process called Lean Six Sigma, which we’re using to change how the Army does its business. At its heart, our districts are business operations. They don’t have any central funding; they’re funded by the projects they do. It’s very clear to us that with the dynamic nature of change today, we need to be more responsive, we need to be able to turn requirements into facilities a lot quicker than we do now. It’s particularly critical as you move units around that when they either return from combat or when they stand up a new brigade combat team. Obviously those facilities to house, train, care for those soldiers, they must be ready on specific dates.
What we’re doing, essentially, is we’re going to standard facilities. Right now, installations and major commands have more flexibility in describing the facilities requirements. We’re going to standardize those Armywide … particularly where common facilities like barracks and dining facilities and admin facilities are concerned … (Another focus is) more reliance on … building components that are manufactured off-site then assembled on-site. Read more…
I believe there has been much controversy over the effectiveness of Lean and/or Six Sigma. At Oracle, the methodology operates on the following tenets:
