PANAMA CITY, Fla. –
Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) hosted a Purchasing Value Stream Analysis (VSA) event November 8-10 at Gulf Coast State College.
The Command Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) Office led the VSA event as part of the Procurement Initiative Optimization Project (PIOP), which is a portion of the Command’s top strategic objectives. As an initiative to improve processes, the larger PIOP became one of Command leadership’s top goals.
John Kelly, CPI lead at NSWC PCD, said these events add value to NSWC PCD’s list of standard operating procedures (SOP), as well as support the NSWC PCD Strategic Campaign Plan goal to rapidly deliver solutions by decreasing time to deliver products and services.
“We conducted a VSA to walk process owners and customers through a mapping exercise to identify value-added and non-value-added steps in the current state, and then set the course for the future state by establishing an Action Plan to permanently change the process for the better,” said Kelly. “From the outcome of the VSA, we learned that education and communication are the key components to an improved process for everyone involved in the purchasing piece of the overall procurement umbrella.”
The event allowed collaboration between the Purchasing team and super users to assess the purchasing process from a holistic viewpoint. Ideas and best practices were developed that can greatly improve customer service and understanding.
The event included in-person and virtual participants from business and technical departments across the Command that engaged in rich dialogue and ideas that will be part of the rapid improvement plan to implement and improve the process.
Robert Walker, deputy technical director for technical excellence at NSWC PCD, said process improvement events like this one can be very productive as they make the process visible to both the process owner and customer.
“Visible processes allow for a deeper understanding of process details and provide the opportunity to ensure that only required activities are included,” said Walker. “Lean events, such as this one, are all about eliminating non-value added activity to ensure the process cycle time is minimized.”
DeAnna Pedersen, Purchasing branch head and event champion, said the Purchasing branch is at the beginning of every purchase and is involved throughout the life cycle of each order.
“We are charged with the rapid delivery of services and materials in order to support the warfighter and the fleet,” said Pedersen. “Our team does not own the whole procurement process, we are however, many times the face that everyone puts to procurement.”
Pedersen added she and her team have created an internal Purchasing site to provide information, SOPs, training materials such as Tool Time videos, and more on their internal website at: https://navsea.navy.deps.mil/wc/surpnma/property_management/PROCUREMENT/SitePages/PURCHASING.aspx
“We are a new branch less than three years old and we are just getting started,” concluded Pedersen.
The Purchasing team embraced a new way of doing business and is always looking for ways to enhance customer service by streamlining the process.