Managing a lean six sigma project in a remote environment

ABSTRACT

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations are forced to operate in a remote environment with several restrictions on travel, group meetings, and in-person interactions. This is especially difficult for lean six sigma projects where observing the process and interacting with the workers is essential to understanding and improving the process. The Army's Lean Six Sigma methodology includes five phases Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control;each of these phases includes interaction between the project and process team. This paper focuses on the application of Lean Six Sigma methodology at Tobyhanna Army Depot to help reduce overruns and repair cycle time within the sheet metal cost center. At the initiation of the project, the process incurred over 4000 hours of overruns, a situation in which it takes longer to repair an asset than the standard hours allocated for the repair. Additionally, the average repair cycle time, amount of time required to repair an individual asset, exceeded customer expectations by almost 4 days. The paper discusses how the lean six sigma team executed tradition tools for each phase, like process mapping, data analysis, communication plans, and brainstorming in a remote environment. © 2021 IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2021. All rights reserved.