RED RIVER REVIEW
	OCTOBER 2004

Lean Successes

LEAN and Green

A Week in the life of an AMC Fellow By Dawn C. Smith Life for a Fellow at Red River Army Depot can vary from week to week.  Normally there are a lot of meetings, training classes, and taskers designed to teach us about the day-to-day operation of a depot. Occasionally, we have a “greening” event.  Sometimes it is a trip to a facility where we interact with Soldiers, and sometimes it is an event arranged locally, such as driving a Bradley or firing a 25mm gun. The week of October 4-7, I had the opportunity to serve on a LEAN team in building 345, working on a problem-solving rapid improvement event.  Little did I realize that it would also be a “green” event.  Our team was comprised of Mark Higgs (facilitator), Windell Bishop and Tim Talent (DfQ), Gary Grider and Jerry West (DfO), Walter Powell (Methods and Standards), and myself. The object of the event was to determine the most frequent causes for rejects on the HMMWV line in the maintenance and quality road tests, and find feasible solutions to those problems

Although initially the project felt like just another training event, within a few hours the focus was entirely on the mission and making the process better, so that RRAD can keep the war fighter well-equipped and safe. We analyzed each issue to find which ones had the most impact, and looked for ways to solve those problems.  Each member of the team had something to contribute, and all worked together to get the job done. Red River is supposed to be my permanent duty location, once I complete my rotational training assignments. I have been asked many times why I want to come back here, when so many people in this program have their sights set on high-level positions at headquarters or one of the MSCs.  Working on the LEAN event drove home to me the major reason why I want to return to RRAD: simply that I can't think of a better or more exciting place to serve my country or our war fighters. Although all DA positions are important to the mission, if I were to go to one of the MSCs, I might end up doing one little thing over and over again, remote and detached from the war fighter.  Here, quality and maintenance are so fully integrated that you can't have one without the other.  The work is all-encompassing.  But most importantly, you feel directly connected, somehow, with the Soldier in the field.