Business pros share secrets for gaining, sustaining efficiency

Published April 25, 2011
By 1st Lt. Kathleen Ferrero
Air Mobility Command Public Affairs

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- In its quest to improve efficiency, Air Mobility Command brought in business experts April 20 to learn the best ways to implement process changes.

Hammer and Company briefed more than 90 mobility leaders on Business Process Re-engineering who then started looking at how to increase the efficiency of strategic airlift missions within the Continental U.S.

One point that stuck with attendees was to have an end-to-end approach when redesigning a process, said Col. Bobby Fowler, director of AMC's Fuel Efficiency Office.

"It's not just to get you past the current crisis; it's about changing the way you do business," said Ms. Lisa Hershman, the company's chief executive officer, during the briefing.

"Please don't mistake activity for change. Just because there's a lot of stuff going on doesn't mean anything's actually changing. Some organizations are so wrought with activity that it's chaotic," she said.

The CEO said it's smart to work out kinks in a process before turning to technology. "If you automate a bad process, you get bad results faster and spend a lot of money doing it."

Shell Oil Company saved approximately $500 million on information technology costs by focusing on processes first, she said.

Leadership support is critical to sustainment, especially in organizations with rigorous turnover. Leaders who start "fresh" every 12 to 24 months without building on predecessors' gains can destroy progress, Ms. Hershman said.

"No one can withstand that much culture change; and what happens is that people go back to what's comfortable -- and that's why the change doesn't happen."

Long-lasting improvement also requires willingness to take risks and make mistakes, she said.

"If you challenge workers to think outside of the box but don't give air cover to change the box, then it's not going to happen," Ms. Hershman said. "If you don't have a culture that allows for experimentation and innovation, then this is going to be hard."

A previous president and CEO of FedEx logistics, Joseph McCarty, also briefed the audience and said the company faced challenges similar to AMC's - including little to no visibility of what was being ordered for airlift; lack of information about shipments; and order prioritization.

He said the insistence that "everything is priority" is invalid. Fed Ex uses an allocation system for customers, affording the planners better predictability and flexibility to deal with capacity fluctuation.

A consolidated information interface also helped FedEx improve its game, helping customers know exactly where their shipment is at all times. Mr. McCarty said, "Information about the shipment is more important than the shipment itself."

Attendees gleaned from the CEOs' advice during brainstorm sessions on the problem of flying empty legs.

"We looked at the processes that drive some of way we do cargo planning and scheduling," Colonel Fowler said.

Ideas included better collaboration between AMC and U.S. Transportation Command; consolidating automated data systems; and exploring state side multimodal options.

USTRANCSOM-directed multimodal operations orchestrate land, sea and air transportations where it best makes sense. For example, in 2010, millions of dollars were saved by shipping MRAP-All Terrain Vehicles across the Atlantic and then loading them onto C-17s for their remaining trip to Afghanistan, versus flying them all the way from Charleston, S.C.

"I think there's potential there, and a lot of it," said Lt. Gen. Rusty Findley, AMC vice commander, during the conference out-brief Thursday. "We proved that with the multimodal solutions that we've implemented already at our overseas locations"
AMC teams will now start analyzing the ideas from the conference, Colonel Fowler said.

He said he was pleased that so many people gave up their valuable time to sit down and focus on an important process.

"I'm very glad that we did this," General Findley said. "We need to see where and how we can make things better."