AFSO21 improves efficiency, productivity

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Matthew Hubby
  • 436th AW Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  The Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century program has been in operation since June 2006 and is responsible for a cultural shift at Dover Air Force Base.

Team Dover has embraced AFSO21, which is designed to create a culture of process improvement by identification and elimination of wasteful practices.

About 80 percent of Team Dover has had lean awareness training, said Ronald Collins, 436th Airlift Wing AFSO21 program manager. The program is not only established in the Air Force, but is Department of Defense wide, under the name 6Sigma.

"AFSO21 is mostly common sense," said Mr. Collins. "It's made up of two separate parts, Lean and the 6S's. Lean is about reducing waste. It's like going to the grocery store and shopping for beef, you're going to look for the steak with the lowest amount of fat, and trim whatever extra there might be. The 6S's are safety, sort, straighten, shine, standardize and sustain. These areas are vital in the maintenance of the AFSO21 program, because they help get the ball rolling on what areas of a process need work."

The goal of the AFSO21 program is to get a process as close to perfection as possible, said Mr. Collins. This is done by using Rapid Improvement Events, which take a process and breaks it down into its component parts the tools of Lean and 6S are then applied to the process, removing any extra steps in the process or potential waste.

"When doing an RIE, we usually set up a room and use one wall to map out the process," said Master Sgt. Melissa Sawyer, 436th Airlift Wing AFSO21 assistant program manager. "We also have an idea parking plan, where people will write their ideas down on a sticky note and place it on a spot on the wall for us to come back to later."

AFSO21 also allows the empowerment of the total workforce, said Mr. Collins. It allows for everyone in the rank structure to put forward ideas as to the improvement of the process. Anyone can work on an RIE and assist in the improvement process.

"A lot of the time it's the people on the bottom level that spot the problem in the process in the first place. They look at it and say 'we could be doing this better.' The goal of AFSO21 is to get people thinking how," said Mr. Collins. "A part of that is developing the 6S's to fit the work center. If it's not a perfect fit, it just becomes another audit and wastes time and energy that should be going into the process improvement."

The continuous improvement aspect, the 'do more with less' attitude of AFSO21, is part of a cultural shift brought on by 6Sigma in the Air Force, said Sergeant Sawyer. AFSO21 takes years to actively change Air Force culture, and has entered its second phase.

"Part of the training we do here at Dover, that has been benchmarked by a few other bases, is our plastic block exercise," said Sergeant Sawyer. "The goal of the exercise is to show people the difference between using the AFSO21 tools and not using them."

Dover is the only AMC base that stresses this hands-on experience with AFSO21 values, said Mr. Collins.

"We're doing great things here at Dover," said Mr. Collins. "We were invited to speak at the Air Combat Command's first AFSO21 conference, and we have briefed at a few other bases as well. The idea parking plan was selected for both AMC and Air Force best practice. With leadership and our personnel engaged it won't be long until the AFSO21 culture takes flight and achieves new heights of excellence."