By Gene Gongaware
Training Specialist

The external recruiting process that keeps the NADEP ranks filled with qualified artisans and other personnel will see a massive savings in cycle time soon thanks to a change in the way the depot does business.

Lean office, a part of the overall Lean program that is sweeping NAVAIR, has found its way into the human resources external recruiting program. Lean changes to external recruiting began Aug. 30, and are expected to help the program reach a goal of 68 percent reduction in processing time for new hires – from 162.5 to 64 days.

This is just the first step in a new focus for AIRSpeed’s Lean program – nonproduction areas of the NADEP. Walk around the depot and you can see how the Lean process is changing the way artisans do business. Now Lean office is moving in to complement and support the trimming down of depot indirect operations.

The first step of the Lean office initiative was taken when Earl DelMastro, director of Corporate Operations here, took the lead for leaning out the three depots’ external recruiting process. Several areas that could use improvement had been identified and discussed during a Lean workshop at NAVAIR headquarters. The first of those areas that showed the potential for great improvement was external recruiting. In short, DelMastro solved the issue by gathering representatives from each of the depots, including members of the depot human resources offices and human resources regional service centers. Their mission, with the help of Training Within Industry, Inc. consultants: combine the best business practices from each site to form a better standard for all three depots. The true test of this leaning out process will come later this month when the first employee hired under the new system is scheduled to complete his induction.

Things rarely move this fast in big industry. But that’s what Lean is all about.

Like other Lean initiatives, this is just the beginning, says Mike Bogdahn, the site lead for Lean production. With the apparent success of this initial Lean office effort, the depot AIRSpeed team plans to focus next on another time-consuming problem here – the time clock process.

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