After a weeklong "lean event," a Defense Supply Center Richmond Lean project team has recommended process changes that could result in a 50 percent reduction in the workload for customer account specialists. Event team members examined the myriad of inbound customer contact methods and discovered a large disconnect in response times.

"The team indentified 10 entry points in the current system for customers to contact [the Defense Logistics Agency]," said Air Force Maj. Michael Barnes, a greenbelt facilitator. One of those entry points is via a personal e-mail to a customer account specialist. "We identified approximately 600 e-mails CASs answered in one week from customers that aren't accounted for in the CAS's workload through the existing channels."

Team members confirmed that the existing process wastes time on both the customer and supplier operation sides of the transaction. Instead of investing time on order fulfillment, CASs find themselves responding to duplicate requests for information, researching incomplete data and fielding requests for information that is readily available through agency self-help tools.

The team recommends reducing the number of customer entry points from 10 to two. Read more.

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