Sustaining the Military Enterprise: An Architecture for a Lean Transformation

The U.S. government mandates that all Department of Defense logistic-wide initiatives adopt commercially proven practices and strategies to undergo maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) transformations. Reasons for the drastic order include aging weapons systems, an aging workforce, limited financial resources, and new technologies, just to name a few. In order to execute this radical directive, transformation offices have been established to implement these new strategies. However, these offices have no condensed, user-oriented context to refer to when implementing these new strategies. Sustaining the Military Enterprise describes a Lean Enterprise Architecture (LEA) strategy to transform sustainment processes. It incorporates the management and technical skills necessary to design and implement cost effective, integrated, sustainment networks and agile organizational structures. The application of LEA to military sustainment initiatives will lead to less resource intensive and less organizationally disruptive practices than seen in traditional Lean enterprise transformation methods. The book is organized into six chapters, which focus on three major subject categories. Topics include management techniques for transforming the military sustainment enterprise, improving the enterprise, process improvement initiatives and benchmarking best practices, and activities for enterprise transformation. The text also provides an assessment and description of the current military sustainment system and a guide to the LEA transformation. Through an intensive examination of new technologies, tools, and strategies, the author provides a means for military sustainment initiatives to achieve a successful transformation.