Leading Change
	Reducing Cycle Time

The DoD Vision

Process time in the Department of Defense has been reduced by at least 50 percent by the year 2000; major improvements have been made in streamlining government, reducing infrastructure, and improving customer service through process reengineering and technological breakthrough.

Current Situation

The Department of Defense has had some dramatic successes in reducing cycle time, particularly in some industrial and production functions. The lessons of reengineering is being applied to administrative, managerial, contracting, acquisition, financial, personnel and other non-industrial processes. However, DoD must make major reductions, not just marginal changes, to the time it takes to:

• acquire weapons systems
• get people through the training pipeline
• hire someone, reward an innovator, or get rid of a poor performer
• close the books at year end
• buy computer equipment - the buying cycle is longer than the technology cycle
• make budget decisions - at every level
• coordinate approvals for change through multiple stovepipes and layers of review and all our other major processes

Why it is important

Time is money. By consuming our people's time with lengthy processes, we forfeit their ability to contribute to warfighting. We pay enormous and unnecessary infrastructure costs that limit our ability to fund warfighting requirements as well as research and development.

What will it take

A commitment to reengineering. Reductions of this magnitude demand a redesign effort which studies whole processes, not just individual parts. To succeed will require "clean sheet of paper" reengineering and taking full advantage of tools like Total Army Quality, Enterprise Integration, etc.

For example:

• The Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center's reduction of M1 A2 Tank Production time by 4 years, saving $168 M.
• The Army Corps of Engineers' reduction of waterway lock maintenance time by 23 percent, saving $2.1 M.
• The Army Medical Department's reduction of order-ship-receipt cycle time from several weeks to 3 days, saving millions of dollars.
• The Communications-Electronics Command-Fort Monmouth reduction of formal source selection for major acquisitions from 12 to 3 months, saving 9 months overhead costs to the contractor and government.
• Soldier one-stop in-and-out processing stations, significantly reducing the transitioning of soldiers to and from units, thereby enhancing readiness.

How we will do it

Senior leadership must:

• Decide what high-payoff areas to study and set realistic goals.
• Encourage clean sheet reengineering, benchmarking, and cross-functional mapping.
• Link authority and responsibility; eliminate unnecessary controls.
• Craft performance agreements with process owners; establish results oriented metrics.
• Tolerate prudent risk; be willing to take flak from those who will demagogue about every failure.
• Create new opportunities for proven innovators.

The Army has embraced Reinvention initiatives as a way to maintain operational performance and readiness while achieving our streamlining goals. Reducing cycle time complements those goals and furthers the elimination of waste and non-value added steps.

Remember the DoD Vision. We need your support.

Send comments to: leadingchange@hqda.army.mil

Last revision: 18 Aug 2008