Lean thinking ideas are about eliminating waste. Some who believe the government should just be smaller, talk about a lean government, but that is not the same thing as a government that applies the concepts of lean thinking.
Toyota is very lean and very large. Most business apply lean concepts with the goal of growing the size of their organization as they are better able to serve customers and compete in the marketplace.
The first Public Sector Shingo Prizes have been awarded by the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing.
The gold recipient is Robins Air Force Base, Warner Robins Air Logistics Center:
C-5 began its Lean journey in 2001, and the successful Lean implementation has produced dramatic results in quality, cost, and delivery. Flow days have been reduced by 30%, while defects per aircraft dropped dramatically. In 2004 and 2005, C-5 PDM accomplished 100% on-time delivery, while increasing the number of aircraft produced.
Silver recipients are, Letterkenny Army Depot, Patriot Missile, Air Defense System:
The “Capability Based Depot” has tripled its workload in the last 3 years while returning $21.5 million to their customers. Letterkenny has employed lean concepts to obtain a 99% customer satisfaction rate, the highest on-time-delivery rate in the Army, and to reduce its accident rate by 50%.
Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center:
the Tanker Division utilized an array of process improvement tools to facilitate improvements while increasing quality, efficiency and safety; thus enabling them to become the benchmark effort in lean implementation for Tinker Air Force Base. The results were dramatic: within four years, the average yearly flow time for a KC-135 PDM dropped 52%, the number of aircraft on station (WIP) decreased 49%, and capacity increased 75%.
Hill Air Force Base, Ogden Air Logistics Center, F-16 Common Configuration Implementation Program:
Since incorporating Lean tools and techniques into its process and establishing the U.S. Air Force’s first organic cellular flow line in early 2004, CCIP has realized a 30% reduction in flow days, an 80% increase in defect-free aircraft, and a 50% reduction in WIP.
Hill Air Force Base, Ogden Air Logistics Center, Commodities Branch:
Utilizing lean process improvement tools, shop technicians have reduced the cycle time from 145 days to less than 18 days and decreased the production floor footprint by 33%, thereby increasing capacity to accept a new A-10 pylon workload into the existing parameters of the organization. Additionally, the team was able to eliminate all back orders, and is meeting production demands with an unprecedented 100% on-time delivery rate!
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June 17th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
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