IMCOM’s 2009 Lean Six Sigma Excellence Awards Program Winners Announced

IMCOM is all about operating installations and meeting the needs of Soldiers and Families as efficiently as possible. One of the Command's best tools for getting the most bang for every buck is Lean Six Sigma, a proven process that's helped major corporations improve their performance.

IMCOM selected one organization and four project teams as winners of the 2009 IMCOM Lean Six Sigma Excellence Awards Program. Four organizations in addition to HQ will be submitted as IMCOM’s nominees for the 2nd annual Department of the Army LEAP. Congratulations to these organizations and project teams for winning the 2009 IMCOM LEAP awards:

Organizational Deployment Awards

IMCOM Pacific Region
· The strategy for the Pacific Region is focused on improving cost management, contract management and energy conservation improvements.
· Leadership at the Pacific Region is highly engaged in LSS. The region director is a strong advocate of the program and has participated in a Rapid Improvement Event by setting the direction of the RIE and personally reviewed progress.
· The Pacific Region developed a Web-based site for collection of project suggestions that allows region personnel to submit anything from an idea to a complete charter.
· Two of the region’s most successful “enterprise” projects generated substantial financial savings for the region. The first project at USAG Fort Richardson identified an improved method of processing and disposing of spent range brass. The project generated financial savings, labor cost avoidance and generated revenue through the sale of the spent brass -- all three areas generated benefits of $220 K per year. The second project at the region level consolidated the licensing of their Computer Aided Drafting and Design (CADD) software. By implementing a license manager the project was able to realize financial benefits of $1.2 M over a 5-year period.

“Enterprise” Project Team Awards

HQ, IMCOM
Lean Six Sigma Service Metric Process
· Wide-scale benefits: Prior to system synchronization, 100% of CLS performance metrics were entered manually. Now CLS is able to benefit from the 40% ISR top-load for identical measures and that percentage is growing as the multi-generational plan is implemented. Synchronization eliminates entry of duplicate measures leading to a workload reduction across 157 Army installations.
· Wide-scale participation: The project team included members from IMCOM, Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, National Guard Bureau, United States Army Reserve and Fort Belvoir. The governance structure is more expansive.
· Wide-scale replication opportunities: This project established an approach to synchronize reporting of metrics and established a governance structure, which are both being replicated across the installation management community in the Metrics Rationalization project.

Fort Knox
Federal Employee Compensation Act (FECA) Claims
· Reduced Federal Employee Compensation Act (FECA) claims costs-project aimed to reduce continuation pay and leave without pay costs.
· Increased visibility of ongoing claims process while reducing system abuse rates.
· Implemented new training measures with emphasis on injury avoidance and workplace safety- training classes are tailored to most common local accidents/injuries.
· Realized a cost avoidance of over $570K/yr from FY09-14.

“Non-Enterprise” Project Team Award

USAG Baumholder
Civilian Security Guards
· Realized cost avoidance of over $570K/yr from FY09-14.
· Improved the utilization rate of the contract security guards by 39%.
· Realigned resources from under-utilized Access Control Points (ACP) to more highly utilized ACPs.
· Reduced total # of required contract security guards.
· Reduced annual contract cost for affected ACPs from $1.46M to $830K − a savings of over $500K per year.

“Non-Gated” Project Team Award

Aberdeen Proving Ground
Energy Savings Performance Contract
· Implemented energy savings cost reduction initiative by negotiating a new contract with Johnson Controls
· Reduced energy costs by over 11% leading to a cost savings to the Army of $6.9M through 2014 (validated by AAA)