Private-sector techniques find new home with Air Guard

Learning from industry, the Nevada Air National Guard increasingly uses lean-manufacturing techniques as it prepares for war or natural disaster.

And Air Guard units returning from service in Iraq report an unexpected benefit from the drive for continuous improvement of their processes:

In combat, units are forced to do more with less, to stay focused on the immediate mission and to develop systems that allow work to be done as quickly as efficiently as possible.

Those are the goals, too, of lean manufacturing techniques developed by the private sector, which are dubbed "Air Force Smart Operations" as they are introduced to Air Force and Air National Guard units around the world.

Last month, the Nevada Air National Guard in Reno hosted the first training in Smart Operations conducted outside the Washington, D.C., area.

Chief Master Sgt. Ken Bunker, who coordinated the class, is a fervent champion of continued process improvement.

He walks through a hangar at Reno-Tahoe International Airport where a crew, some of the 200 full-time members of the Nevada Air National Guard, conducts a routine inspection of the unit's C-130 aircraft.

The spotless hangar is carefully organized. Nothing unnecessary for the mission is in evidence. Painted marks on the floor specify the location of equipment to eliminate time spent searching for gear. Tools are positioned to reduce unnecessary motion. Hard hats just enough to meet the needs of the unit, not a single extra hang in neat rows. Procedures are standardized.

"We do it the same way, every time," says Bunker.

The impetus for lean-manufacturing techniques through the Air Force and the Air National Guard arose as budgets tighten even as the costs of fighting in Iraq mount, says Col. Jonathan Proehl, commander of the 152nd Airlift Wing of the Air National Guard in Reno.

The cost savings, while difficult to measure, are likely to be substantial as the techniques speed maintenance and allow aircraft to spend more time in the air.

But equally important, Proehl says, will be the boost to morale that accompanies the effort and morale is a critical issue in retaining guardsmen and attracting new recruits.

Proehl, who conducts what he calls an annual "climate survey" to gauge the satisfaction of air guardsmen, says it's still too early to determine the effects of the Air Force Smart Operations program on morale in the Nevada unit.

Says Bunker, "It's empowerment, the power to ask, 'Why am I doing is this?'" But those questions, difficult for workers to ask their bosses in the private sector, are all the more difficult in the military's strict hierarchy, the chief master sergeant says.

Winning the support of senior military leaders and the non-commissioned officers who make the program work on the shop floor has been a priority since the program was rolled out.

"We must fundamentally change the culture of our organization," said Lt. Gen. Craig R. McKinley, director of the Air National Guard before the lean-manufacturing training began in Reno last month. "Together, we will march unnecessary work out the door forever."

Like any business that undertakes a lean-manufacturing initiative, the Nevada Air National Guard focused first on the low-hanging fruit such as process improvements on the shop floor.

More challenging, Proehl says, will be streamlining the sometimes cumbersome bureaucracy that can sap morale of pilots and crews that want to be flying and maintaining aircraft instead of dealing with paperwork.

He wonders, for instance, if some of the many training sessions required for guard members may be scheduled for a just-in-time delivery bringing them into the classroom only when training is actually needed.