By Phil Zalesak

Nick Kunesh, the U.S. Navy’s Lean Six Sigma deployment champion and deputy assistant for the Navy for logistics, caught everyone’s attention last week during the NAVAIR Black Belt, Green Belt symposium. He did it with the statement: We will either “deploy lean six sigma to free up assets from existing budget levels to recapitalize or face continued declines in ships, submarines and aircraft.”

The crowd of more than 300 who attended the symposium in Jacksonville, Fla., was reminded once again that the projected aviation procurement accounts are shrinking and the cost of operating older aircraft is getting more expensive. This financial squeeze is one principal reason the Navy is turning to productivity tools like Lean Six Sigma and Theory of Constraints as a means to enable cost-wise readiness now and in the future.

The symposium hosted Navy, industry leadership and productivity experts. Jeffrey P. Pino, president of Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, was in attendance, as were corporate leadership and quality experts from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Pratt and Whitney, BAE, Bell Helicopter, General Electric, and L3COM. Also, David Boghossian, founder of PowerSteering, a software productivity company, shared lessons learned regarding strategic planning and execution based on the experience of corporate entities he has supported in recent years.

Attendees heard presentations from Vice Adm. Wally Massenburg, NAVAIR commander, Rear Adm. Mark Skinner, the naval aviation enterprise AIRSpeed deployment champion, Karen Holcomb, NAVAIR director of corporate operations, Rear Adm. Tim Heely, program executive officer for weapons, and Capt. John “Scanner” Scanlan, commander officer of the Jacksonville naval aviation depot. The speakers talked about the importance of AIRSpeed, the institutionalization of AIRSpeed as NAVAIR’s management philosophy of continuous process improvement, AIRSpeed lessons learned to date, and the specific application of AIRSpeed to the depot environment, respectively.

Jeff Flesher, Randy Stone, and John Gatt, were recognized for being the first to achieve NAVAIR black belt certification. The three gave a team presentation on what they have learned during the last year in prosecuting AIRSpeed projects.

Other groups of black belts were recognized for being certified to give NAVAIR yellow belt training and passing the American Society of Quality certification exam.

Dale Moore, NAVAIR deputy AIRSpeed deployment champion, was specifically recognized by Massenburg for his contribution to the AIRSpeed initiative and was presented a NAVAIR medallion for his efforts.

The third and final day of the symposium was dedicated to workshops which included tutorials on productivity software programs such as Minitab, iGrafx, Power Steering, and Microsoft Office tools and AIRSpeed financial work books.

Photo Captions: Stu Young, executive director for NAVAIR AIRSpeed, discusses AIRSpeed progress to date with Mr. Nick Kunesh, the US Navy’s deployment champion for Lean Six Sigma, and deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for logistics.
Photo by Phil Zalesak