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Identifying Logistics Educational Needs

Naval Surface Warfare Center

Crane, Indiana

Gail W. DePuy, John S. Usher, G. Don Taylor, Cindy Edlin

University of Louisville

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1. Determination of Workplace Competencies: What are the items of general logistics knowledge that must be

learned to prepare a person adequately for the practice of logistics?

Can a set of workplace competencies be identified?

2. Measurement of Logistics Preparation and Progress: Is there a scale to measure the level of logistics competency that

is currently held by an organization or its members? How do Crane organizations perform on this scale? How do Crane individuals measure up on this scale? What metrics should be used to assess the value of specific

logistics training methods?

Project Purpose

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Benefits

Employee understanding of position requirements Identification of logistics training needs Employee preparation for new job/position Demonstration of existing qualifications Personnel decision making Logistics competency of all workers in the organization

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Basic Elements

In order to do this, the system that is proposed herein closely follows the model designed by Cooper (2000), by offering the following features:

Competency Model – The list of individual workplace competencies that workers must possess to be qualified for a position.

Position Standards – The level of knowledge required for each competency and each job.

Assessment Instrument – The measurement tool that will be used to determine levels of competency.

Gap Reports – A description of the differences between actual competency and required competency for a given job that can be used to determine training needs.

Individual Development Plans – a system for identifying to employee and management the areas where gaps exist.

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Collected from subject matter expert interviews, military internet sites, logistics course descriptions, and career development plans.

Ms. Melissa Boeglin and Mr. Russell Dart, funded through the National Science Foundation “Research Experience for Teachers” program.

Review of the literature, including Lambert, et. al. (1998), Blanchard (2004), Simchi-Levi et. al. (2003), Bowersox and Closs (1996), and Turner et. al. (1987)

30 specific logistics workplace competencies deemed to be critical to the mission of NSWC-Crane.

Competency Model

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CompetenciesProducts that are ready-made and available for sale to the general public. COTS products are designed to be implemented easily into existing systems without the need for customization. (6)Probability that a system not only will be ready when required but will be able to complete its overall mission in a satisfactory manner. (2)Management approach used to identify the functional and physical characteristics of an item in the early phases of its life cycle, control, changes to those characteristics, and record and report change processing and implementation status. (2)

Contract Knowledge Knowledge of contract assignments, requirements, and law. (8)Crane Product/Process Knowledge Knowledge of the products and services provided by Crane.Demand Forecasting Projection/prediction of the volume or number of units that will likely be produced, shipped, or sold. (4)

Innovative acquisition planning and strategy formulation, including definition of contract cost, performance, and affordability incentive plans. (7)

Financial Mgmt & Planning Knowledge of financial systems, accounting, budgeting, and cash flow operations. (8)Handling The process of handling any material, any place, and any time, within the plant. (5)

Compatibility between the system physical and functional design features and the human element in the operation, maintenance, and support of system. (2)Management technique that simultaneously integrates all essential acquisition activities through the use of multidisciplinary teams to optimize the design, manuf, and supportability processes. (2)Involves to specification of inventory procedures, such as the type of ordering system to be used, the amount to order each time, permissable safety stocks, and so on. (5)Involves decisions throughout the system development process which include 1) design and development cost 2) production and construction cost 3) operation and maintenance cost 4) system retirement and phaseout cost. (2)Knowledge of 1)transaction systems: order processing, inventory assignment, shipping, pricing, invoicing, and customerinquiry 2)management control: performance measurement and control such as financial, customer service, productivityand quality indicators 3)decision analysis: vehicle routing/scheduling, inventory mgmt, facility location, and cost-benefit analysis 4)strategic planning: developing and refining logistics strategies. (4)Ability of an item to be maintained, pertains to the ease, accuracy, safety, and economy in the performance of maintenance actions. (2)

Order Processing Order processing assigns or allocates available inventory to open customer and replenishment orders. (4)

Configuration Management/Control

Availability

Maintainability

Applications of COTS

Human Engineering

DoD Program Mgmt

Logistics Information Systems

Integrated Team Processes

Life Cycle Cost Analysis

Inventory Mgmt

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CompetenciesPackaging is the last phase of production. The packaging of the finished product must be designed to protect it during transitand to ensure that the product will arrive undamaged. (5)Involves maintenance and support infrastructure by establishing specific metrics to include these as quantitative design-to performance requirements in the appropriate specifications (define requirements of system at the outset). (2)Includes skills concerned with building effective teams, delegating skills, experience as a task leader, flexibility, manpower, managing conflict, negotiation skills, time mgmt, and training. (8)Procurement is the purchase of materials and services from outside organizations to support the firm's operations from production to marketing, sales, and logistics. (1)Planning, based on monthly forecasts, of assembly and component parts orders and daily scheduling of production based on finished goods inventory levels. (3)

Project Mgmt Knowledge and experience with project planning, budgeting, scheduling, control, and reporting. (8)Quality Assurance includes all those planned or systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that a product or service will satisfy given needs. (5)Probability that a system or product will perform in a satisfactory manner for a given period of time when used under specified operating conditions. (2)Customer satisfaction is a total enterprisecommitment that emphasizes the importance of delighting selected customers by providing whatever services are necessary and expanding extraordinary effort to ensure fail-safe performance. (4)In part standardization, common parts are used across many products, thus reducing required part inventories due to risk pooling and reduce part costs due to economies of scale. (3)A function of warehousing, storage activities relate to warehouse layout, design, ownership, automation, training of employees, and related issues. (1)The supportability analysis (SA) is an iterative analytical process by which the logistic support necessary for a new (or modified) system is identified and evaluated. (2)Systems engineering is an engineering discipline whose responsibility is to create and execute an interdisciplinary process to ensure that the customer and stakeholder's needs are satisfied in a high-quality, trustworthy, and cost and schedule efficient manner throughout a system's entire life cycle. (2)Transportation involves selection of the mode (e.g., air, rail, water, truck, or pipeline), the routing of the shipment, assuring of compliance with regulations in the region of the country where shipment is occurring, and selection of the carrier. (1)

Storage

Supportability Analysis

Systems Engineering

Transportation

Standardization

Procurement Mgmt

Personnel Mgmt

Satisfying Customers

Reliability

Quality Assurance

Production Planning

Performance Based Logistics

Packaging

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Target levels for each competency set for each job. Many scales are possible. The research team recommends the following five-point scale:

1= No experience, training or education

2 = Conceptual knowledge, but no experience

3 = Limited performance with supervisory guidance

4 = Frequent experience in performing the competency without supervisory review

5 = Expert level with no guidance; has provided consultation and training

Position Standards

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Customized package for NSWC-Crane using Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic. A supervisor to define the position standard for competency within each job. A supervisor to rate an employee by entering an actual score for each competency. An employee to enter a “self-assessment” score for each workplace competency.

Assessment Instrument

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Conclusions

Software package enables employees and managers to evaluate the logistics workplace competency levels for each job and design specific development programs.

The assessment tool is tailored to NSWC-Crane Easy to use Good data security Enables competency evaluations from supervisor and employee Helps identify the current logistics competency level of an

employee and compares it to a stated position standard to identify “gaps”.

Based on the gaps, development plans can be designed Case study implementation is underway now, by the

RETs.