Chapter 3 - Principles of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government

The National Partnership for Reinventing Government principle, "Putting the Customer First," is directly supported by the concepts and tools which have been collectively institutionalized under the concept of Total Army Quality (TAQ). As a strategic management approach, TAQ focuses on continuous process improvement to meet or exceed the expectations of the internal and external Army customer. During FY98, the Army continued to champion improved customer service. Two broad areas have received much attention throughout the past year:

• In the area of organizational development units have employed a customer focus to drive change.
• Organizations that directly interact with individuals have made great strides in providing quality service directly to the customer.
• Listed below are details of the successes achieved by organizations throughout fiscal year 1998.

FORSCOM Puts the Focus on Customer Service Excellence

The U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) installation service initiatives in the following section highlight this organization's focus on the customer.

Fort Lewis Streamlines the DPW Work Order Process

The Directorate of Public Works (DPW) at Fort Lewis, Washington, kept the focus on their customers' needs as they streamlined their work order process. The installation has aligned master mechanics with specific customers to allow mechanics and repair personnel to work together to identify, prevent, and correct problems.

This reinvention initiative has saved $500,000, reduced service order calls by 62 percent, reduced the cycle time to complete routine job orders, and improved the accuracy of customer requests. Customer feedback surveys, instituted during this reengineering effort indicate that there has been a marked improvement in customer satisfaction.

Ordering Officers Empowered to Provide Improved Customer Service

The U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) used the Army's reengineering waiver process to reduce the approval time required for contracting of storage of deploying soldiers' and civilians' vehicles. With Department of the Army Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research, Development, and Acquisition approval, FORSCOM instituted an initiative to include a new provision to Army Federal Acquisition Regulation (AFAR) Supplement 1.602-2-91(b).

Under this initiative, ordering officers have been granted the authority to place service orders for privately owned vehicles against commercial warehousing and related services for storage agreements. In the past, this authority was restricted to contracting officers only.

This change expedites approval of long-term storage by empowering the ordering officer, as opposed to the contracting officer, to make the decision, resulting in a one-stop, single point of contact.

Fort Drum and DFAS Work Together to Speed Payment Processes

In response to the regionalization of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), Fort Drum conducted the vendor pay-reengineering test. The objective of the test was to improve service to DFAS customers and reduce workload duplication through local preparation and input of vendor pay data. The successful test was completed in December 1997 and resulted in lessons learned that have been implemented by DFAS across DOD.

XVIII Airborne Corps Reorganizes Installations Into Customer Focused Teams

Organizational elements at Forts Bragg, Campbell, and Stewart have been aligned into customer focused, process oriented, team-based business centers, with the directors empowered to embrace best business practices and operate as business enterprises. To be the premier power projection platform installation, and to provide quality level of service to its customers, the XVIII Airborne Corps installations reengineered their installation organization around key processes as opposed to functions.

USASOC Adopts Use of Computer Generated Ammunition Accounting Methods

The U. S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) used the reinvention waiver process to institute a major "customer first" initiative. The waiver authorized the use of computer generated accounting methods to manage ammunition in place of the old "manual entry" method of Army Index Cards (DA Form 5203). The ammunition accounting software being used will streamline the management of this sensitive commodity, will save considerable time/man-hours, and will move this "time consuming" requirement into a computer-generated database program. Performance metrics revealed savings of 1,278.9 man-hours. 

AMC Enhances Customer Service

The primary logistics provider within the service, U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC), and its subordinate organizations have made several successful efforts to improve customer satisfaction.

SBCCOM Develops Command-Wide Customer Service Standards

The U. S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command (SBCCOM) has developed Command-wide customer service standards. Team's within the organization were chartered to develop their own customer measures of success depending on the product or service they provide and the needs of their particular customers. A Command Customer Service Plan has been developed to survey customers annually and a Customer electronic mailbox has been created to capture written customer issues as well as a toll-free hot line for verbal communication.

Customer service standards provide each employee a clear understanding of how the Command expects its customers to be treated. It also provides each customer with a picture of an organization that values its customers and expects to satisfy their needs. An annual customer survey is conducted as well as methods for a customer to easily communicate their concerns/needs. Certificates of appreciation and Command coins have been given to the teams that developed the standards.

Benchmarking efforts are underway to study "best-in-class" customer service practices.

AMCOM Partners With their Corporate Information Center To Leverage Technology For Improved Service

Easing the Ordering Process For Visual Training Materials

The Corporate Information Center (CIC), U. S. Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM), developed a user friendly way for ordering training material from Defense Automated Visual Information Systems. The CIC developed a web based system for ordering materials by submitting queries to the customer database. This new ordering procedure simplified both the product ordering and dissemination processes. The number of outgoing products has tripled since implementing this initiative.

AMCOM and Team Redstone Test a Paperless Process for Temporary Duty Travel Vouchers

Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) employees located at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama automated the DoD’s Temporary Duty Travel system in order to provide a user friendly, seamless, paperless, temporary duty travel system that meets the needs of travelers, commanders, and process owners.

The new Temporary Duty Travel system reduces cost, supports mission requirements, and provides superior customer service. This new travel system allows travelers to process automated 1610’s (Request and Authorization for Travel) and 1351-2’s (Travel Voucher) while committing and obligating funding and passing these transactions to various accounting-disbursing systems. This system allows travelers to be paid within 1 day of completion of the 1351-2. This is an improvement over the two to three week wait experienced by the user of the manual payment system.

It also allows budget personnel to access the data and better track their funds while providing travelers the ability to access their record and view the complete transaction and payment records daily The CIC currently supports 10,700 users.

Letterkenny Army Depot's Community and Career Center Provides Career Transition Services to its downsizing Workforce

In response to its downsizing workforce, the U.S. Army Letterkenny Army Depot established the Community and Career Center. The Center is open to all civilian and military employees, their immediate family members, military and civilian retirees, tenant organizations, and contractors who support federal operations at Letterkenny.

The benefits of the center have been tremendous to both dislocated workers and employees in general.

• The Career side provides resume preparation, job search, transition counseling, relocation assistance, and other services in a living room environment with state-of-the-art technology.
• The Community side coordinates military and civilian family events, hosts volunteer recognition, and develops community forums.

Although no formal awards have been bestowed, the Community and Career Center regularly receives high interest and visibility within the local community (as a model transition center) and within DoD when tours are conducted at the depot.

USACE, Pittsburgh District, Puts Customers First By Assisting the Disabled

The Pittsburgh District, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), keeps disabled customers in mind when planning new projects or events. At many projects there are specially built hunting and fishing access areas.

The Conemaugh River Lake 200-acre Bow Ridge features a model disabled access area for sportsmen no longer mobile enough to enjoy hunting and fishing. Bow Ridge is accessed by permit only, with permits available free of charge at the Resource Manager's Office. Five hunting spots are provided for bow, gun, small game and spring turkey season. A fishing area is provided at the launching ramp.

Providing this service at Bow Ridge has proven beneficial not only to the physically challenged hunters and fishermen who use the area but also to those who maintain the area and work with these hunters. In all of its customer-service-oriented disabled recreational programs, the Pittsburgh District has fashioned a spirit of partnership and teamwork to foster professional and personal links between the federal government and the public.

MEDCOM's Dental Care Reengineering Initiative (DCRI)

Under the US Army Medical Command's (MEDCOM) DCRI, test clinics are empowered to develop new ways to deliver patient-centered care and exceed the expectations of their customers. Two extremely success initiatives are listed below.

Patient-Centered Delivery Care System

Implementing a patient-centered delivery care system involves the following:

• Using a system of impaneling patients to specific oral healthcare providers, as opposed to simply assigning them to buildings or clinics. The more personalized nature of the care patients receive through a formal impanelment process establishes a bond between the patient and the oral healthcare providers
• Establishing a point of contact within every facility to act as the advocate for the patient. The better the relationship between the patient and the schedulers, the better the service and level of care provided. Having access to a single point of contact in the clinic at all times facilitates scheduling and reduces the waste resulting from miscommunications between patients and schedulers.
• Empowering the staff to develop new ways to provide service that exceeds the expectations of patients. The stress on the healthcare teams is reduced through the positive relationships established when they have the time to become acquainted with patients.
• Providing incentives, financial and otherwise, that are tied directly to improved customer satisfaction measured through statistically valid and reliable survey methods.
• Encouraging the introduction of successful ideas from the civilian sector.

There is wide consensus in the patient population that the changes occurring through the reinvention effort are improving access to care and the quality of service.

Implementation of a patient-centered delivery care system required initial start-up costs to include hiring additional ancillary personnel and the purchase of practice management software. These costs are carried over the entire life cycle of the initiative and must be apportioned to all aspects of the Defense Care Reengineering Initiative (DCRI). In the long run, DCRI was conceived as budget-neutral. Efficiencies gained through the initiative would manifest themselves over a period of years and reduce dependency on contract support and minimize excess capacity.

A statistically designed patient satisfaction survey, designed by DoD, Health Affairs, is used to measure the level of patient satisfaction in the test clinics. In the sites where the initiative has been underway for approximately one year, overall patient satisfaction has risen on a relative scale from 77.6 to 90.6. The goal is 95.0.

Improving Business Practices and Clinical Efficiencies

To improve business operations within the DENCOM, managers share concepts and ideas for improving business practices and clinical efficiencies with the staff; and empower them to develop methods for implementation and encourage them to share their successes with other test sites.

Involving the staff in day-to-day operations marks a radical and bold departure from the past and it represents one of the toughest challenges in DCRI. Some leaders are reticent to relinquish decision-making authority and some members of the workforce are equally reticent to accept responsibility. Nevertheless, DCRI has been most successful when the entire staff participates in the management process.

DCRI clinics are partitioned into teams and the teams are strongly encouraged to ‘huddle’ every morning and design an informal strategy for meeting the needs of the scheduled patients. Teams are given the responsibility for planning treatment and scheduling their respective patients. The type of services provided and relationships established with the patients are chiefly the responsibility of the team members. Designing better ways to meet the expectations of the patients, reach readiness goals and improve the oral wellness of the population is a continuing process that involves all employees. Weekly telephone conferences with the clinic managers offer an opportunity for the sites to share their successes and discuss solutions to problems.

A statistically designed staff satisfaction survey is used to measure the level of staff satisfaction in the test clinics and to encourage feedback on the initiative. Employee suggestions, such as allowing certified hygienists to provide local anesthesia, have resulted in major policy shifts in the command. In the long term these are expected to improve operating efficiency. Further recommendations include:

• Encouraging team building through techniques such as the morning ‘huddle’ and fostering an environment where participatory management can thrive.
• Surveying the staff periodically to ascertain levels of job satisfaction and including a means for employee feedback.
• Providing incentives, financial and otherwise, that rewards teams for sustaining high levels of measurable performance.

The Dental Care Reengineering Initiative (DCRI) formally concluded its first year of operation on 30 September 1998. To date, DCRI has been introduced on six large Army installations in the Continental United States (CONUS) and one installation outside CONUS (OCONUS). In October 1998, the initiative was implemented in the Pacific and in Korea. This will complete the initial implementation phase of DCRI. Over the course of the next 10 months, DCRI will focus on measuring the success of the reinvention effort and institutionalizing successful elements of the process throughout the Army Dental Care System.

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[Table of Contents] [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] [Annexes]

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Last revision: 18 Aug 2008