The Challenge:

To effectively manage its over $37 billion in material assets, the Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) has many business processes reliant on manual practices, non-integrated systems, and legacy IT platforms that interface with its system of record, Navy Enterprise Resource Planning (Navy ERP). Many of these processes did not meet DoD auditability standards, failed to leverage automated technology, and impeded meeting contemporary risk management practices. NAVSUP was aware of these challenges and needed support to evaluate improvement processes and solutions that could create high value with a minimal impact to Navy resources.

The Approach:

NAVSUP brought in the Nakupuna Companies to conduct a comprehensive business process reengineering (BPR) effort on multiple supply chain processes. Using our innovative Kaizen Loa methodology, we were able to analyze multiple processes and develop achievable and sustainable recommendations. Kaizen Loa is a modified and more rapid Kaizen process divided into five distinct, but overlapping, phases:

  1. Desk Research – Comprehensively review applicable documentation, draft As-Is process mapping.
  2. Ethnographic Research – Interview process stakeholder SMEs, validate As-Is mapping, identify gaps and pain points.
  3. Root Cause Analysis and Solutioning – Conduct a Kaizen event to determine root causes and identify solutions and “quick wins” for gaps and pain points.
  4. To-Be Process Development – Develop optimized future state task-based business and technical requirements incorporating pain point solutions.
  5. Integration – Recommend the best IT platform(s) to host the optimized process.

Using this approach, the Nakupuna Companies were able to deliver comprehensive BPR analyses while placing minimal burden on government resources.

The Results:

Nakupuna helped NAVSUP challenge their status-quo with process improvements that employed simple, out-of-the-box solutions to expeditiously meet their business needs and prioritize “quick wins” to introduce early success to the project. We provided technical recommendations for integrating systems that would eliminate time-consuming manual data entry and validations, enact end-to-end workflow automations while ensuring traceability and accountability, and align NAVSUP overall with the greater DoD’s digital transformation and modernization plans.