The Greatest Application of Lean!
When I taught Process Improvement to Air Force Leaders, I used a formula to explain variation:
Y = f (X1 + X2 + X3 +…+ Xn)
Y is the Time on Target (The time an aircraft is supposed to be at a certain point)
Y is the dependent variable; it was reliant on the function of a bunch of independent variables, such as:
X1 = Pilot Skill
X2 = Condition of Aircraft
X3 = Air Traffic
And numerous other variables all the way down to…
Xn = availability of coffee and doughnuts for the aircrew
This got a bit of a chuckle, but it was the perfect segue to talk about one of the most incredible uses of Process Improvement in history…the Berlin Airlift.
And then I would launch into the story…
The year was 1948. World War II had ended, but a cold war between the allies had begun. Germany had been divvied up; the U.S., England, and France were given the western half of Germany. The Soviet Union had the eastern half. Berlin, the German Capital was in the middle of the Soviet’s eastern half. It too was carved up into western and eastern halves.
The post-war agreements for Berlin gave the Western powers a single highway and one railway line from West Germany into Berlin. There were also three 20-mile wide air corridors into the City. This would allow the movement of the citizens and supplies.
On June 24th, 1948, the Soviet Union, increasingly upset over a variety of Western initiatives to rebuild Germany, cut off-road, rail, and water access to West Berlin. The Soviet military greatly outnumbered the Western forces who had drawn down after the war. Forcing their way in was not an option for the West. That left two options…turn West Berlin over the Soviets or try an implausible resupply via airlift.
Many, including the Soviets, did not think an airlift would work. The U.S. only has 102 cargo planes in all of Europe, each only capable of carrying 3 tons. West Berlin only had two airports, both in poor condition. Planners estimated it would take a minimum of 4,500 tons of supplies every day just to keep West Berlin at survival level. It appeared to be an impossible task.
A plan was devised for the flow of aircraft. With three air corridors available, two of them were designated for inbound traffic and one for outbound.
On June 26, two days after the blockade began the Allies implemented their hastily devised plan. Code-named “Operation Vittles” the first day had thirty-two flights of aircraft delivering 80 tons of supplies. A few days later, the British joined the effort. With the additional support, deliveries went up to 100 tons a day.
The 100 tons were far short of the 4,500 needed for the city to survive. It looked like an epic failure in the making…until General Tunner.
Major General William H. Tunner commanded the U.S. Forces in China during World War II. He was responsible for the airlift operations between India and China that supplied the U.S. troops. This operation was called “The Hump” airlift as the plane has to fly treacherous routes through the Himalayan Mountain ranges. Under his leadership “The Hump” airlift doubled tonnage and hours flown; one of the great unsung accomplishments of the War. Tunner also adhered to Fredrick Taylor’s theories of Scientific Management.
Tunner assumed command on July 28, 1948. He started with two crucial actions. First, he asked his staff to define the problem. How much cargo did Berlin need to survive, and how many planes would it take to get it there.?The second was to consolidate command. The Combined Air Lift Task Force (CALTF) put all air operations, from all countries, into one organization.
Two weeks after taking command Tunner was flying into Berlin to award a medal to a pilot. The weather was bad and visibility was poor. A cargo plane crashed at the end of a runway in Berlin. A second plane burst its tires trying to avoid the crash (the planes landed that quickly after each other). A third plane looped on a taxiway it thought was a runway mucking up traffic. The control tower stopped planes from landing, having them fly in stack patterns, holding over the city. Especially dangerous in bad weather. The entire scene descended into chaos, all with General Tunner stuck circling overhead.
The General grabbed the radio, “This is 5549. Tunner talking and you better listen. Send every plane in the stack back to its home base.”
Tunner later stated it was the chaos of that day that drove a complete overhaul of the airlift.
Before Black Friday, the standards were:
After Black Friday, Tunner and his staff turned the operations on their head. New standards were:
Improvements were almost immediate; In 90 minutes the old system averaged 9 landings. With the new system, it went up to 30. A 233% increase.
领英推荐
This is also where the coffee and doughnuts come into the picture. With the old system, flight crews would leave their planes as they were being unloaded and stroll over to the Operations Building. There they would have coffee and doughnuts, get briefings for the outbound flight, and then return to their plane. The average time for all of this was 75 minutes, despite taking only 20 minutes to unload the aircraft.
With the new conveyor system in place, planes had to turn around right away. There wasn’t time for strolls. Aircrews were told to stay in their plane. The General realized this would be annoying to crews, which could lead to resentment, and ultimately impact morale. So he had some Jeeps outfitted with urns and food trays to bring coffee and doughnuts to the planes. Turnaround time dropped from 75 minutes to 30. This is a prime example of a leader comprehending all elements of an operation and paying attention to the details that impact performance.
It did not stop there, and it was not only the General driving change. Tunner was known to “Manage by Walking Around” (similar to a Gemba Walk). He empowered his people to take on the most pressing problems and to continually improve upon their work. The following are some great examples.
Cargo Loading. Loading cargo onto a plane is a science and an art. The loads must be evenly distributed for the plane to fly properly. In the past loadmasters would determine where to place cargo as it arrived at the plane. The General’s team moved the process up the supply chain. Loadmasters worked on the proper placement of cargo on the trucks delivering goods to the planes. This greatly streamlined the loading process.
Carrying Coal. Coal for heating was critical and made up 65% of deliveries. Nasty stuff as coal dust caused breathing problems for the crews and got into everything corroding cables and electrical systems. The teams used what we would recognize as PDSA cycles in trying to find the best solution to transporting coal.
They experimented using B-29 bombers. Coal was put in bags and shackled to bomb racks. Bombers would then drop the coal in open areas of Berlin. But it didn’t work. There were few open areas in crowded Berlin and the use of bombers might escalate the tensions, The biggest problem was when dropped from 10,000 feet, the coal turned to dust on impact.
But the bag idea had some promise. They began using cloth duffel bags to load coal. It reduced the dust and was easier to handle. But bags wore out quickly and the cost was $250,000 a month.
Building upon using bags, they tried multi-ply paper bags. They still kept the dust down and were only pennies a bag…cost was only $12,000 a month.
But dust still leaked out of the bags and PDSA continued. They tried sealing off cargo compartments with little success. Wetting the coal to keep the dust down added too much additional weight. It was a continuous process to improve coal deliveries.
Carrying Salt. Humans need salt, but the delivery of salt was a problem. Salt is highly corrosive to metal cables inside the flight controls that ran along the bottom of most planes. Salt would filter downward and eat away at cables. A solution was found by the British, They began to transport salt in their big Sunderland Flying boats, which had control systems running along the top of the aircraft. These planes also could land on water, freeing up runway space.
Moving Big Equipment. Of the two airports in Berlin at the start of the blockade, only one was really functional. The other was still largely rubble from the war. But repairs and building of new runways required large construction equipment that could not fit into cargo planes at that time. The solution came from somebody on the team who remembered an engineer who, six years earlier, had cut apart bulldozers to be airlifted into Brazil, then reassembled them.
The FBI found the engineer working at a small airport in Midwest America. Within days, H.P. Lacomb was in Frankfurt working with the army. Together they cut up 81 rock crushers, bulldozers, and tractors, and delivered the pieces to West Berlin. They then re-welded the equipment back to working condition. Damage runways were repaired. Existing ones were expanding, and a whole new airfield was also built. Greatly expanding capacity.
There are so many wonderful examples of improvement and innovation throughout the entire airlift operation. These included:
Training Program. As the airlift expanded, more aircrews were needed. A training program was set up in Great Falls, Montana. There, crews flew cargo planes loaded with tons of sand through a duplicate of the Berlin corridor system. Everything was the same as in Germany: location and radio frequency of navigation beacons, the glide path arrangements, and even runway layouts. The location was chosen as it had the same magnetic headings (and bad weather) as in Germany.
Anti-Theft. Pilferage of items in Berlin became a problem, especially shoes during the winter months. To solve that, they shipped left and right shoes on separate aircraft
Maintenance: Often overlooked, maintenance is especially critical in aviation. General Tunner instilled a strict maintenance regime which often took airplanes out of service. Maintainers were constantly coming up with ways to speed things up.
There are many more examples, both large and small, and they could fill a book. But there’s one more story that captures the spirit of the Airlift (and isn’t that the core of any process improvement). So let me tell you about Operation Little Vittles.
Lieutenant Gail Haversen, a pilot, was taking a walk around Tempelhof airport when he came across a group of kids. They would gather around the fence to watch the planes. Haversen talked with the kids and was amazed at their outlook and optimism. He wanted to give them something, but all he had were two sticks of gum. Haversen broke the gum into small pieces and handed them out to as many children as he could. He promised he would bring enough candy for everyone…and drop it from his plane. The children asked how they would know which plane was his. Haversen told them he would wiggle his wings as he came in for a landing.
Back at his base, the Lieutenant took all his candy rations talked some fellow crew members out of theirs, and fashioned three small parachutes. The next day upon his approach to land at Tempelhof he saw a cluster of expectant children. He wiggled his wings, then shoved the parachute packages out the flare chutes. As he took off, he saw the children waving the parachutes at him, and he got a bit nervous. Haversen was concerned he’d broken some regulation. But he kept at it, for the next two weeks he dropped candy. German newspapers began writing stories about “The Candy Bomber” and children sent letters to the base addressed to “Uncle Wiggly Wings.” This caught the attention of the Base Commander who was about to tell Haversen to end it. But General Tunner had also heard about Haversen. Tunner, as strict and straight-laced as he was, realized the valuable publicity Haversen was generating. Tunner ordered the Lieutenant to “go full speed ahead.” And Operation Little Vittles was born.
The operation rapidly grew. Fellow pilots joined in the candy drops. Back in the U.S. Scout Troops and Wives Clubs raised money to buy candy and handkerchiefs. Candy companies made bulk donations; one of 10 tons. When the crowds at Tempelhof grew too big, pilots began dropping candy all over Berlin as they flew. Operation Little Vittles became an iconic symbol of the humanitarian essence of the airlift.
The airlift dragged on. The Soviets were convinced the city could not continue on airlifted supplies alone, especially when winter hit. But processes continued to improve, innovation built upon innovation, and tonnage continued to climb. Cargo increased in the winter months and into the spring of 1949. In April, General Tunner devised a competition he called the “Easter Parade.” During this time the airlift hit a peak of 12,941 tons delivered. This was actually more than what had been delivered via railroads before the blockade.
The blockade began to wear more on the Soviets than the Allies and the West Berliners. The airlift had been going on for 10 months and could go on indefinitely. The Russians were losing in the court of world opinion and being branded as bullies. Additionally, the Allies had a counter-blockade that was causing shortages in the Soviet sectors of Germany, leading to fears of an uprising.
The Soviet Union blinked first and lifted the blockade on May 11, 1949. The Allies, however, continued the airlift until September 30th. Just in case the Soviets changed their minds. And, perhaps, to demonstrate what can be done with innovation, empowerment, and paying attention to the availability of coffee and doughnuts.
This was a bit of a longer article this week, but I really do love this story and hope you enjoyed it as well. If you'd like to read more about this incredible event and the remarkable people behind it, I recommend reading The Air Force can Deliver Anything. A History of the Berlin Airlift, available as a PDF download at the Department of Defense's Media website.
#quality #lean #leansixsigma #operationalexcellence #processimprovement #totalqualitymanagement #storytelling innovation? #lean #leantraining? #leanthinking
Co-Founder of Zenkai Improvement Partners, Lean Accelerator and TPS Study Tour Operator, Cross Cultural Expert, Japan Market Entry
6 个月What an amazing story that wonderfully demonstrates what's possible when great minds go all in on solving "life-or-death" problems. Thanks for sharing.