Civil engineering experts map facility support process Published Feb. 19, 2010 By 1Lt Pam Stauffer 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- One of the Warner Robins Air Logistic Center's five strategic initiatives is focused on performance. Specifically, ensuring the Center delivers aircraft to its customers on time. To help move the Center closer to that goal, members of the 78th Civil Engineer Group and others recently conducted a week-long value stream mapping event to identify ways to improve CE support to the ALC. According to event organizers, how quickly CE responds to the facility needs of units such as the 402nd Maintenance Wing directly impacts the speed those units are able to support its customers. "Focusing on the customer tends to change your perspective. The team worked hard all week to improve their processes ... knowing the ultimate customer is the warfighter," said Randall Evans, 78th Air Base Wing Lean coordinator. The team investigated a number of areas including intra-agency communication and customer service and satisfaction, and found current CE processes to be 'linear, complicated,' said Evans. One major change the team recommended is for CE to not wait for a certain stage of a project to be complete to begin work on subsequent stages. For projects which involve planning and programming, design and construction, the team found the average flow-time could be lessened from 843 to 672 days, or as much as 20 percent. The team also found additional flow time savings can be realized by simply involving organizations such as the small business office, contracting and legal in the first stage of projects rather than later in the process. This will lessen the likelihood of projects having to be 'reworked' because of administrative or legal oversights. Evans said the team's work epitomizes the Center's focus on Performance - 'We are a results driven, preferred provider committed to customer support.' "All of the organizations involved in this process were more than willing to do their part to ensure we have the best process in place to support the warfighter," he said.