Reassigning Unnecessary Staff

U.S. Army Forces Command places many contracts with private companies to get the goods and services it needs. Reviewing contracts prior to placement for cost validation and alignment with the Command's mission was taking far too long due to participation in the process by personnel who were subsequently found to be non-essential. Use of LSS methodology enabled these identifications to be made and these individuals to be re-assigned to more useful positions within the Command. Doing so enabled the review process to be shortened by 65 percent and an annual cost savings of $270,000 to be realized.

Problem

U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) trains, mobilizes, deploys, sustains, transforms, and reconstitutes conventional Army forces; thereby providing relevant and ready land power to Combatant Commanders worldwide.  This extensive mission includes mobilizing and training continental U.S. based forces (roughly 80% of the Army) at various locations.  One organization within FORSCOM, the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics (commonly known as the G4) is responsible for logistics support and movement of equipment and vehicles.  This organization works closely with Army Materiel Command (AMC) and Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA) G4 to accomplish this mission.

FORSCOM G4 uses contracts with multiple suppliers to perform its mission.  These contracts are numerous and cover services ranging from equipment maintenance, equipment repairs, spare parts provisioning, transportation and provision of temporary personnel for staff augmentation.

The contract review process was very time consuming due to contract requests requiring G4 executive approval (the Commanding General).  The process was taking 26 days on average from entrance into the process to final approval.  This relatively long length of time frequently resulted from requests being assigned for review to the wrong Division and from rework.  Since the contracts required top executive approval, additional staff review was added.  This further complicated the review process and created “scope creep” from the original purpose which was to simply validate the contract for cost and alignment with G4’s mission.   

 Approach

To address this issue, it was decided to form a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) team to improve the contract review process.  The team completed a Value Stream Map to identify bottle necks and types of steps involved.  It was determined that the early steps in the process (at the requesting Division level) provided a complete and reviewed contract document, but prior leadership had added additional review steps necessitated by a separate Contracts Review organization.  The review steps in the second half of the process created almost a 100% rework loop by adding further justification and refinement to contract approval requests.  In most cases, this additional rework and input neither improved the contract request nor changed the service or provider.

The team conducted a Voice of the Business analysis to determine the minimum essential information for contract approval.  This information was worked into G4 procedures and contract request forms.  In addition, it was found that contract review by Senior Executive Service (SES) personnel at the Division level, prior to submission to the G4 Commanding General, satisfied all policy requirements.  Further review above the Division level was determined to be non-value-added.

The team created and implemented an improved process for which the Contracts Review organization was closed and its members distributed to the Divisions to add further subject matter expertise to drafting the initial contract request.  Executive review above the Division level was discontinued and a list of approved contracts was added to the Commanding General’s monthly status reports.  This eliminated the non-value-added review steps in the second half of the process and moved the process towards its original intent.   

Results

The new process with the non-value-added review steps removed resulted in a much reduced average cycle time of only nine days (65 percent reduction) during the pilot run. The targeted cycle time had been 10 days, or two business weeks.   The annual cost reduction was $270,000.  This was a 25% cost reduction due to elimination of the Contracts Review organization and integration of its personnel into the Divisions actually responsible for performing the components of the overall G4 mission.