(U.S. Navy: Great Lakes) -- A team from Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Midwest headquarters wrapped up the command’s first lean Six Sigma event in Great Lakes on Aug. 17, after a week dedicated to improving its support to commands throughout the region.

By applying the concepts of lean Six Sigma to analyze their current practices, members of NAVFAC Midwest’s financial management and acquisition departments identified ways to more efficiently fund contracted projects. According to the team, the new practices should reduce processing time by 80 percent and cut in half the time spent on each funding document.

"It was a great week," says NAVFAC Midwest comptroller John Julitz. "I applaud the team members. They drove the process."

Lean Six Sigma is a set of practices originated by commercial industry aimed at continually improving production processes. It taps the knowledge of employees involved at every level of a particular process, bringing them together and systematically identifying ways to make the process more efficient.

The goal is to eliminate as many unnecessary elements in a process as possible, improving every team member’s understanding of how they deliver a product to a customer and revealing better ways to work together.

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