Air Force Materiel Command news service (April 7, 2006): ESC Rapid Improvement event speeds up hiring process.

HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. (AFPN) -- Electronic Systems Center's first Rapid Improvement Event cut the fat out of the civilian hiring process here, identifying a potential 58 percent reduction in the total time it takes to process a Request for Personnel Action, or RPA, and submit it to the Air Force Personnel Center.

In only three days, team members from ESC's wings and functional organizations, along with representatives from ESC's Directorate of Personnel and the Hanscom Civilian Personnel Office, stripped down the recruitment process and identified areas for elimination or improvement that can reduce the average total process time here from 40 to 45 days to only 10 to 20 days. Following its report to management and ESC senior leaders, the team is working to implement the identified improvements over the next three to six months.

"Our first Rapid Improvement Event was a great success, showing what people can accomplish when they focus on process improvement," said Air Force Maj. Gen. Arthur Rooney, ESC vice commander, who served as the team's sponsor. "The bottom-line benefits of what this team accomplished will be realized when managers fill civilian vacancies faster, avoiding wasteful downtime. I look forward to many more of these RIEs taking place across the center."

Air Force Capt. Robert Enrico, a reservist who works as a Lean expert for Honeywell in his civilian job and also is a green belt in Six Sigma, served as the team's facilitator. Lean and Six Sigma are two process improvement tools used in industry that are essential parts of Air Force Smart Ops 21, an Air Force-wide effort to identify and eliminate waste and inefficiencies.

"We only had three days for this Rapid Improvement Event, so we had to really focus our scope on what takes place from when an RPA is initiated until it is sent forward to AFPC," Enrico said. "We took a structured approach to the problem, first identifying our 'as-is' state, showing where we are now. We then determined what the 'ideal state' could be, and also identified a future state, that reflects how we are going to continue to improve."

"The first day and a half, I thought we were never going to be able to Lean the process, but then we went from zero to 100 miles per hour," said Michael Gotschall of ESC's Plans and Programs Directorate.

The Daedalian Room of the Hanscom Club was a beehive of activity as the team mapped out a "value stream" for the current RPA process, filling countless easel pads with diagrams of "touch points" for the RPA as it flows through the current process.

The value-stream mapping clearly illustrated where the "hands off" state was during the process, which is often wasted time. The group determined that it currently takes from 40 to 45 days to coordinate a recruitment action through the current process at Hanscom; however, the "touch time" involved with processing an RPA without any waiting is from 15 to 16.5 hours.

The mapping also indicated an inefficient process with an RPA flowing back and forth among affected organizations--including wings, functional offices, civilian personnel, and ESC's Personnel Directorate. Often times, these touch points are necessary to correct defects identified in the paperwork. In fact, the team estimated 80 percent of all RPAs submitted to Civilian Personnel are defective. Increased use of standard core documents, or position descriptions, will help reduce the need to send back an RPA.

"Every time there's a touch point, it slows down the process and increases the chance for error," said Donna Desimas of ESC's Directorate of Personnel, "so our goal was to eliminate as many touch points as possible."

In identifying the ideal state, the team recommended combining the wing and functional processes, and accomplishing them at the wing level. So, for a financial management vacancy in the Battle Management Systems Wing, for example, the wing will handle tasks such as calling AFPC, initiating the RPA, and discussing it with civilian personnel. The team also decided that, rather than having paperwork flowing among the Classification Branch of Civilian Personnel, the Manpower Office, and the resource manager, representatives from those offices will meet and take care of all details relating to a specific RPA in one sitting. The future state of the civilian hiring processes in the next few years may feature integrated manpower and civilian classification processes, standard core documents for civilian positions, and classification of civilian positions done by AFPC.

Although exhausted by the pace, team members said they learned a lot and enjoyed their time participating in the Rapid Improvement Event.

"There are a lot of people out there with a lot of good ideas, and when you give them the opportunity to bring those ideas to the table, the organization benefits tremendously," said Alicyn Cerulli of the Operations Support Systems Wing. She said the experience helped her learn different brainstorming and problem-solving techniques.

"This was really time well spent," Cerulli said. "We all felt we could speak freely and help make a change for the better. If we can do even half of what we plan, it will be a huge improvement over the current civilian hiring process."

"I'm proud of all these people and what they accomplished," Rooney said. "They set a great example for all of us to follow as we continue to implement Smart Ops 21 across the center."

Gilmartin is with Electronic Systems Center Public Affairs.