By Vicky Falcón
NAVAIR Public Affairs Office

A recent process improvement project is bringing Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) engineers and those across the entire Department of the Navy (DON) a software tool they need at reduced cost and improved efficiency – with a total NAVAIR savings of more than $344,000 per year.

NAVAIR is using the process improvement tools Lean, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints throughout the organization to expose waste, standardize workflow, reduce variations and improve overall business processes.

Many NAVAIR engineers use The Mathworks, Inc. software products, such as MATLAB, to do data analysis, visualization, algorithm and application development. The rising costs associated with software license purchases and support led to a closer look at existing processes and the resulting improvements.

“It’s hard to imagine doing my job without it,” said John Leonard, Flight Dynamics Engineer at NAVAIR. Leonard, who tests flying qualities of aircraft for flight clearances, describes MATLAB as an engineering, programming, mathematical tool that a large percentage of engineers in the industry use. MATLAB has also become the standard tool taught at engineering schools across the country.

“MATLAB allows me to do analysis on a large scale,” Leonard explained. “I can do many calculations and analysis quickly, which means a fast response to fleet needs.”

Although the product itself is an industry standard and indispensable for many within NAVAIR’s engineering community, the process for software purchase and maintenance had grown cumbersome and costly.

“Since 2001, the process of purchasing and maintaining MATLAB data analysis software tools has been stove-piped, redundant and not cost efficient,” said Cindy Keeney, a Lean/Six Sigma Black Belt within NAVAIR who led a project called, “Integrate Management of MATLAB Data Analysis Tools” last year. Black Belts are accountable for leading projects that capture and sustain improvement within the organization.

According to Keeney, the results of that stove-piping have been unnecessary labor costs, excessive purchases of MATLAB software, higher costs per license and increased cycle time.

“In FY04, NAVAIR spent approximately $340,000 in labor costs to procure $618,000 of The Mathworks, Inc. products – a labor/material ratio of 0.55,” explained Keeney. “NAVAIR did not receive any discounts from the vendor on new product purchases, either.”

Bruce Feldman is branch head for the Strike Aircraft Propulsion and Air Vehicle Subsystems Flight Test department and maintains the MATLAB portal and corporate licenses.

“The prior process went through the standard purchasing route,” said Feldman. “There were lots of steps because IT (Information Technology) waivers were required. An IT waiver could require a Flag Officer or Senior Executive Service signature and then would have to go through contracts, including sole-source justification. The whole ordering process could take weeks.”

“But now,” Feldman continued, “the process is virtually painless.”

First, the team negotiated a five-year Indefinite Delivery/ Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract with The Mathworks, Inc., with IT approval for the length of the contract. That approval eliminated completing and processing over 800 IT approval forms.

By eliminating excessive forms and unnecessary, redundant approval processes the team was able to streamline the purchase process and make it consistent across NAVAIR.

“We were able to obtain Contracting Office approval for Ordering Officer warrants,” said Keeney. “This enabled purchases over $2500 under the same contract using a Purchase Card as the payment method. This streamlined the purchasing process and reduced the number of personnel processing orders from more than 50 to three.”

The result was a 67 percent reduction in the cost of labor.

“We also had a ‘quick win’ by negotiating a 25% discount on new software purchases for NAVAIR and other DON organizations into the new contract,” explained Keeney.

According to Keeney, The Mathworks, Inc. had not been viewing all of NAVAIR as one organization – now they have grouped not only NAVAIR, but all of DON for the discount.

Another quick win, according to Keeney, came from promoting and utilizing an internal Web site to post unused MATLAB licenses.

“In the past we made redundant purchases within NAVAIR because there was no mechanism to post unused licenses,” said Keeney.

The new process has created a Type II savings of $344,000 per year. Type II savings are actually waste elimination where assets/resources are freed up to be reassigned to other value-added work and/or potential future savings.

Jay Lichtenstein, TheMathWorks National Account Manager, has seen a vast improvement over the previous method in which NAVAIR procured software with his company since the process was put in place in December 2005.

“Turnaround time for government users to receive products has been reduced from weeks, and in many cases months, to just days,” said Lichtenstein. “Since I deal with many other government agencies I would highly recommend similar contracts where appropriate.”

For more information on NAVAIR’s use of Lean and Six Sigma to improve processes, go to http://www.navair.navy.mil/navairairspeed/index.cfm.