Caring for Soldiers

In order to get to Iraq, all soldiers process through Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. In fact, Ramstein is their last stop in a comfortable environment prior to arriving in Iraq. Therefore, senior Air Force and Army commanders were not pleased when they learned that soldiers spent six hours at Ramstein to board their flight to Iraq, and that part of this time was spent in a facility that had insufficient seating capacity and lacked basic amenities. LSS was used to shorten this time to four hours and to enable soldiers to totally avoid the inadequate facility. $429,000 in operating costs was also saved, but more important, the quality of the experience for men and women about to go to war was improved.

Problem

In January 2007, senior Army and Air Force commanders began to question the six-hour processing time soldiers experienced between the Deployment Processing Center (DPC) and the Joint Mobility Processing Center (JMPC)—both located at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany. This six-hour step was the final one soldiers went through before deploying to Iraq.  The commanders agreed there were opportunities for improving this processing step, and committed to work together to bring them about.   Even though this six-hour step was a small part in a much longer overall process, it was critical in the deployment of soldiers to Iraq, and one that could provide not only a benefit to the Army, but to the actual men and women who were about to go to war. 

Approach

A combined team of Army and Air Force personnel addressed this issue through use of a Kaizen event. Kaizen is a Japanese word that has become a standard procedure in Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodology and means use of a highly focused analytical event to increase the speed at which process improvement options are assessed and implemented. This Kaizen-based project was facilitated by a LSS Master Black Belt (MBB), and a Black Belt Candidate.  The MBB used a hybrid project approach, but still followed the five steps of LSS (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) in a compressed two-month timeline.  This included one month of pre-work to define and measure the existing process, a one-week Kaizen event to analyze and improve the process, and a final two to four weeks to control the process through implementation of the identified improvements.  This methodology reduced the project’s duration, but maintained the full rigor of a standard LSS project.

During the one-month define and measure phase, the team examined the current process to clearly identify the issues.  The goal of this activity was to capture the process and allow the team to make decisions based on actual process information and data during the subsequent Kaizen event.  The team found that soldiers would arrive at the DPC to prepare for their flight to Iraq.  The DPC had capacity to easily handle up to 300 soldiers per movement and provide them with comfort and support services prior to their departure.   The team also found that the soldiers had to make an additional move to the “Purple Ramp” at the JMPC that did not have the same comfort or resources as the DPC.  The JMPC only had the capacity to handle 100, and resulted in soldiers sitting or reclining on the floor prior to their flight. 

During the measure phase, the team found that soldiers’ bags and a troop manifest were provided to Air Force personnel for loading of the airplane.  This manifest would often require rework due to information issues.  Also, since soldiers’ bags required more time for loading than the soldiers, the bags needed to leave earlier than the soldiers.  But, it was found that the soldiers left the DPC for the JMPC at the same time as their bags left.  It was erroneously thought that soldiers could not be separated from their bags (unlike civilian airlines where bags are checked long before passengers actually board the aircraft). 

With the current process understood, the team knew there were three issues to address:

• Accuracy of the troop manifest data
• Amount of non-value-added movement of soldiers prior to actually boarding the aircraft
• Soldier comfort prior to flying to Iraq

The team met for the one-week Kaizen event.  During this event they walked the process as a team and reviewed the data.  During the analyze activities it was determined that the root causes of the troop manifest quality issues resulted from data in the manifest that was non-value-added.  The Air Force required only three essential elements of information in the manifest, but it contained much more.  In addition to identifying the information that was no longer needed, the requirements for the three remaining value-added information elements were clearly defined in the spreadsheet, itself, thereby reducing errors and rework.  An analysis of the process found that soldiers were moving to the JMPC from the DPC at the same time as their bags and manifest were called to the plane.  With the manifest corrected, and the soldiers’ bags properly accounted for, the soldiers were no longer required to do this prior to boarding the aircraft.  The decision was made to eliminate the stop at the JMPC and board soldiers to the aircraft directly from the DPC.  This process change allowed soldiers more time to remain at the DPC which had much better amenities and adequate seating capacity.

Results

Within one month of the Kaizen’s completion, the aircraft boarding process and associated policy guidance were changed.   The team was able to reduce the process cycle time by 25 percent and improved process cycle efficiency by 11 percent.   The financial impact of the changes resulted in $429,000 cost savings, a 25 percent cost reduction.  This was achieved through a reduction in effort and personnel needed to process soldiers through a busy mobilization location.  But more important, the quality of the experience for the soldiers was improved which was important since Ramstein was their last stop prior to going to Iraq.