Skip Creveling, President of PDSS, was invited by the U.S. Army to co-present at the American Society for Quality's 2009 Lean Six Sigma conference in Phoenix, AZ March 2 and 3.
The presentation was led by Paul Chiodo, Kevin Hayes, and Bob Kuper of the U.S. Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) in Picatinny, NJ. ARDEC serves as the Center of Excellence for Lean Six Sigma and DFLSS training and deployment for PEO-Ammunition and the U.S. Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM).
The presentation, spanning two conference sessions, was entitled "
FutureSigma-the Next Generation of Design for Lean Six Sigma (DfLSS)". Paul Chiodo began with an overview of ARDEC's history of Enterprise Excellence, recognized most recently by receiving the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award in 2007.
Since 2001, ARDEC has been using Lean Six Sigma to deliver quality products to the soldiers in the field. Over the past 8 years, ARDEC has changed their culture to support Enterprise Excellence by first focusing on leadership commitment through better communication with the workforce, agreeing on project priorities and aligning project accountability with mission objectives; and second, overcoming resistance to change by showing how employee participation makes a positive difference, maintaining a consistent message across the enterprise, listening to employees and addressing issues as they arose.
Kevin Hayes then explained that ARDEC has undertaken an initiative focused on problem prevention that will add to their well-established problem-solving capabilities known as the next generation of DfLSS, also called FutureSigma.
ARDEC continuously learns from industry leaders. Last summer, they made benchmarking visits to two of PDSS' clients, 3M and Cummins Engine, to study their adoption of DfLSS. These visits convinced them they were on the right path. ARDEC's objective is to develop and utilize a disciplined ARDEC process that integrates project management, systems engineering and Lean Six Sigma Tools as a framework for technology and product development.
ARDEC has chosen, as one part of their initiative, to incorporate the tools, methods and best practices of technology and product development outlined in Skip Creveling's books "
Six Sigma for Technical Processes" and "
Design for Six Sigma in Technology & Product Development". The other two important components integral to ARDEC's FutureSigma initiative are probabilistic technology, provided by PredictionProbe, Inc. and axiomatic design, provided by Six Sigma Professionals, Inc.
This next generation DfLSS is based on three principles of design; axiomatic design, robust design and probabilistic design. Axiomatic design addresses the functional requirements independence and the minimal information principles. Robust design makes the system insensitive to noise. Probabilistic design enhances the reliability of the system and prolongs its operational life. These methodologies work in a coherent way to produce Six Sigma-capable systems up front. The next generation DfLSS addresses two major product development vulnerabilities:
1. Conceptual vulnerabilities that are established due to the violation of design principles, which can be handled by axiomatic design, and,
2. Operational vulnerabilities that are created as a result of factors beyond the control of designer called response factors, which can be handled by robust design and probabilistic design.
PDSS has been assisting with the development of ARDEC's new process, called Vector. The next phases of ARDEC's process development begin soon, and PDSS will ally with ARDEC and the other two team members, PredictionProbe, Inc. and Six Sigma Professionals, Inc., to create a unique process comprising the most powerful set of tools within a technology and product development process.
The presentation continued with brief introductions of each team member's contributions to ARDEC's new process. Skip Creveling discussed robust design, Basem Haik of Six Sigma Professionals, Inc. discussed axiomatic design and Mohammad Khalessi of PredictionProbe, Inc. discussed probabilistic technology. The presentation concluded with Bob Kuper of ARDEC summarizing the entire FutureSigma initiative and facilitating a Q&A session.
More about ARDEC
Headquartered at Picatinny, N.J., the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) is the Army's principal researcher, developer and sustainer of current and future armament and munitions systems. ARDEC plays a key part in Army Transformation with its involvement in the development of the Soldier and Future Combat Systems and continued efforts in the development of advanced weapons that exploit technologies like high-power microwaves, high-energy lasers and nano-technology.
ARDEC's overall mission is to improve already fielded items, develop new ones, maintain a strong armament technology base in government, industry and academia and provide technical support to the soldier in the field. In this way, the Center achieves its vision of "Innovative Armaments Solutions for Today and Tomorrow."
The recipient of many prestigious national awards including the 2007 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the Presidential Award for Quality, two Army Communities of Excellence Awards and several Army Research and Development Organization of the Year Awards, ARDEC is an organization whose entire fabric is committed to providing its ultimate customer, the warfighter, the most effective products found anywhere in the world.
With over 2,500 highly skilled scientists, engineers and other technical specialists situated at five different locations throughout the U. S., ARDEC is currently responsible for several hundred programs that are in one of the following phases of the Acquisition Process: Basic Research, Applied Research, Concept Demonstration, Development, Production and Deployment. The Center's efforts are concentrated in ten major technical areas: Smart Munitions, Indirect Fire, Direct Fire, Soldier Weapons, Mines and Demolitions, Gun Propulsion, Fuzing and Lethal Mechanisms, Fire Control, Munitions Survivability and Pollution Prevention.
ARDEC is the Army's "Center of Lethality" and as such is leading the way in the development of tomorrow's armament and munitions systems, working closely with its Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine partners.
For more information, see
http://www.pica.army.mil/PicatinnyPublic/organizations/ardec/index.asp More about ASQ The American Society for Quality (ASQ) is the world's leading authority on quality. With more than 100,000 individual and organizational members, this professional association advances learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange to improve business results, and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide.
As champion of the quality movement, ASQ offers technologies, concepts, tools, and training to quality professionals, quality practitioners, and everyday consumers, encouraging all to Make Good Great®.
The 2009 ASQ Lean Six Sigma Conference website is at
http://www.asq.org/conferences/six-sigma/index.html 
