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Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne stated it clearly in his March 8, 2006, Letter to Airmen: "With AFSO 21, we will march unnecessary work out the door—forever." Well, that's exactly what AFIT's School of Systems and Logistics did in their first AFSO 21 event.

Keeping track of the who, what, when, and where of our business, as well as providing our students with proof of class attendance through the use of transcript data, has now, more than ever, become an important internal step. Over the years, the amount of student information has grown and, with it, so has the use of AFIT Form 63 student data cards. While most people look at this card as a simple “fill in the blanks” activity, it's really a major process with many touch points that requires hundreds of hours.

The keys to the successful launch of this first LS Lean event were the: (1) front-end planning and preparation, and (2) the commitment and dedication of the entire LS team. Starting in January, Capt. Michael Fields (team lead) and Mr. Mike Bayer and Mr. Don Howard (facilitators) finalized the charter, identified the team members, collected relevant data, and then walked the process to ensure they had a solid understanding of the AFIT Form 63 and its uses. After some final preparations, the team kicked off the Rapid Improvement Event (RIE) the week of February 12, 2007. Unfortunately, the team got only the first day wrapped up when they were delayed by a base-closing snow storm. Reconvening on Thursday of the same week, the team picked up where they left off and began the development of their value stream map.

Beginning at the end of the value stream and working backwards, the team developed a current state map that enabled them to identify all of the steps and activities in each imbedded process along the AFIT Form 63 path. This allowed the team to determine who was involved and why, the amount of time required, and the number of handoffs in each activity along the value stream. Next, they conducted a value analysis to identify which steps and activities along the value stream were Value Added, Non-Value Added but Required, or Non-Value Added (just pure waste). In the end, the team discovered that the entire AFIT Form 63 process consumed 569 days of tracking, storage, and security for only 30 minutes of actual work, need, and usage.

Completing the current-state map enabled the team to quickly identify the ideal state map and transition into developing the future state map with two goals. The first goal was a reduction in the following areas: number of handoffs, amount of the non-value added but required work, total cycle time, and total lead times. The second goal was to totally eliminate the 9% non-value added activities or waste, while still collecting and preserving the relevant demographics data needed for metrics and student transcript requirements.

Finally, at the conclusion of the RIE, the team developed a clear strategy and action plan to implement their future-state, a plan tied to the successful testing (Beta testing) of the new, revised AFIT Form 63 student data capturing process. The implementation plan includes nine individual steps that are "just do it" steps as they are clear-cut, make-sense changes to the current process that can be quickly implemented.

At the time of writing this article, the testing of the new process was completely successful! Plans are now being finalized to begin the full implementation of the new process within LS.