Major General Rooney, U.S. Air Force, Recognizes Outstanding Achievement of Aon/Rath & Strong

Lexington, MA- 7/10/06

Major General Arthur J. Rooney, Vice Commander of Electronic Systems Center (ESC) at Hanscom AFB personally awarded the Vice Commander’s Coin to the Lean Rapid Improvement Event project team led by Harvey Dershin, senior member of the Lean expert team from the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute. Dershin is also Senior Vice President, Aon Management Consulting, Rath & Strong of Lexington, MA

In recognizing the results achieved by the Lean Project Team and the UMass Donahue Institute, Major General Rooney singled out Dershin for praise, commenting that:

The superb contribution Harvey Dershin has been making to train our airman, officers and civilian personnel is critical to our mission. The results of these Lean Efforts are already helping the Electronic Systems Center to significantly reduce our costs and to improve our performance. Thank you for a job very well done. 

Lean is being deployed to strip waste out of critical processes and gain significant time and cost savings as s part of Air Force Smart Operations for the 21^st Century initiatives at ESC. In line with the Smart Operations effort, the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute in partnership with Rath & Strong led a series of Lean Rapid Improvement Events (RIE) at Hanscom and trained a cadre of facilitators. As Christopher Robbins, Director of Corporate Training and Education, UMass Donahue Institute, observed: 

“For ESC, we leveraged a unique collaborative effort with Rath & Strong. Our partnership brought to bear the intellectual capital of two leading providers of process improvement solutions and organizational training. This allowed us to provide experienced, expert leadership to implement three Rapid Improvement Events within a very short timeframe, while building ESC’s internal capabilities. We are honored by General Rooney’s recognition of Harvey Dershin’s contribution and the achievements of the teams we led.” 

Dershin led the Civilian Hiring II Rapid Improvement Event that followed up on an earlier RIE. The RIE built on earlier successes and cut even more waste out of the process according to Sheila Brennan, Electronic Systems Center’s Director of Personnel. “We did so well on this RIE because we weren’t learning Lean any more – we could just do it,” Ms. Brennan said. “Also, we learned some great Six Sigma tools and that really helped us shape our ideal state.” The total processing time it will take to fill a civilian position at Hanscom will drop a dramatic 58 per cent. “We’ve taken it down from about 83 days to between 11 and 18 days,” Ms. Brennan stated. 

The second project led by Dershin and Rath & Strong Vice President Peter Tibbetts will achieve an estimated immediate $1.5 million in savings. This RIE’s goal was to “reduce the process time it takes to staff a decision package while increasing real collaboration on it –  collaboration that allows each office involved to see the comments made by all the others involved,”  according to Ron Norton, who leads the Strategic Planning Group of ESC’s Plans and Programs Directorate.

In all three events, the cadre of trained facilitators aided in the RIEs and observed to add to their Lean and facilitating skills. “We intend to hold rapid improvement events continuously, and we need to have the capability in house to conduct these events, efficiently and affordably, wherever and whenever we need to,” Mr. Norton said. “This puts us on the path to being able to do exactly that.”