MSC Today - Macon State College

MSC's Institute for Business & Information Management Takes Lead in Providing Efficiency Training To Robins AFB and Business Groups

George "Trash" Harper, a senior executive consultant with BAE Systems in Warner Robins, teaches a Lean seminar to employees of various organizations within the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center.

Lean is a philosophy and process, originally formulated by the Japanese car manufacturing company Toyota, that aims to help government organizations, business and industry operate more efficiently by eliminating waste and improving services. Through the College's Institute for Business & Information Management, a business and technology outreach service based at the Warner Robins Campus, Robins Air Force Base employees and others are getting trained in Lean techniques.

"Macon State was in a perfect position to offer non - credit education and training in Lean," said Mike Hale, executive director of the Warner Robins Campus and the Institute. "Lean has widespread emphasis throughout Robins Air Force Base, and the College has degree programs in business and information technology where many of the management fundamentals inherent to Lean are taught. Offering these classes gives us a chance to build special expertise in Lean so the Institute can effectively serve the Base and private sector companies in Houston County."

Lt. Gen. Donald Wetekam, the former commander of the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, strongly advocates Lean as a means of increasing productivity and lowering costs in WRALC operations, which include worldwide responsibility for the repair, modification and overhaul of various military aircraft. Wetekam's replacement, Brig. Gen. Michael A. Collings, said Lean is one of his priorities as well.

"Lean is a great initiative," he said in a recent interview with the Robins Rev Up newspaper. "Any time you can streamline processes to be able to increase productivity, lower costs and provide more capability out the door to the warfighter is a winning situation."

Last fall, the Institute began offering a series of three - day seminars in Lean at the Warner Robins Campus. More than 200 students, mostly Base employees, had participated in the seminars through mid - April.

The instructor for all the seminars has been George "Trash" Harper, a senior executive consultant with BAE Systems in Warner Robins. ("Trash" was Harper's call sign as an Air Force pilot.)

"BAE Systems became involved with Macon State in response to General Wetekam's direction to develop partnerships that would benefit the Air Logistics Center and its capabilities to support warfighter requirements," Harper said. ":We chose Lean as a topic because it had been identified as a tool by which to transform the ALC."

The bible of the Lean movement is a book by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones titled, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. While most of the students in Macon State's Lean seminars have so far been affiliated with Robins Air Fore Base, Hale noted that as the title of the book indicates, business and organizations of all kinds can benefit from the training.

"Lean exists to eliminate waste and inefficiency in any business process, whether it be a military maintenance line or a business process to hire teachers in a school district," Hale said. "This is the essence of economic development."