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Fort McCoy has successfully deployed, employed and/or
redeployed more than 13,000 Soldiers since January 2003. And as the
installation anticipates the arrival of additional mobilized units,
the installation processes and procedures to be used during Phase II
of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) will be significantly different than
those used as recently as last January.
Ensuring Fort McCoy continues to excel in accomplishing its
Power Projection Platform mission has been top priority of
Installation Commander Col. Danny G. Nobles. As a result of that
command emphasis, the garrison staff has been involved in an extensive
bottom-up review of all mobilization operations, said Installation
Chief of Staff Al Fournier.
"It's our Fort McCoy culture of continuous quality
improvement that led us in May 2003 to initiate a comprehensive
assessment of our installation's mobilization support processes, and
of the operating structure by which those processes were being
executed," Fournier said. "Despite our past success as an
Army Power Projection Platform, the senior leadership here felt it
essential that we use our most-recent mobilization experience to
challenge ourselves, apply the good lessons learned, and seek to
achieve even greater operating efficiencies and productivity
improvements in this important mission-support area."
The mobilization assessment was conducted using a three-phase
approach that involved a number of personnel examining
mobilization-related operations at all levels of the installation -
enterprise, business, and operational.
In addition to analyzing mobilization processes for
improvement, the assessment also focused on how best to utilize the
resources of Fort McCoy's Garrison Support Unit, the 6015th, from a
long-term staff sustainment perspective.
Fournier said the installation's Quality Management Boards (QMBs)
played a major role in this mobilization assessment.
As the "owners" of all installation processes, to
include those related to mobilization support, the QMBs were given the
charter to apply quality-improvement techniques to all mobilization
operations with a view toward delivering even better support to
mobilized units arriving at Fort McCoy.
"This improvement effort included a review and analysis of
the lessons learned from the most-recent mobilization support mission
that began last January. Each
mobilization process was reviewed and either revalidated as applicable
and efficient or the process was modified for improvement,"
Fournier said. "For
those processes that were re-invented, the associated cost savings
will be reported to the installation commander as part of his
quarterly Productivity Improvement Review.
Eventually all installation mobilization process, those
validated as accurate as well as those modified, will be documented
and posted to a newly established site on the Fort McCoy Corporate
Network."
Fournier said this site will afford the user a search
capability to find any mobilization process either by title or by the
organization responsible for its execution. The site also will have references and links to the latest
mobilization guidance or regulations as issued from higher
headquarters and as that information is applicable to each process.
"The result will be a central depository of all key
mobilization support processes accessible to authorized installation
personnel through an automated database," he said.
"Moreover, as a result of the process-improvement effort, the
recipients of this support, the mobilized Soldier, can be assured that
Fort McCoy is dedicated to providing the most-professional,
most-responsive and most-mission-effective support possible."
Fournier also noted that after OIF-Phase II, the staff again
will employ the continuous process-improvement cycle, applying the
most-recent lessons learned to ensure that any new ideas or needed
process changes are fully assessed and incorporated into the
installation's mobilization business practices.
The second aspect of this mobilization assessment involved the
establishment of a specially chartered mobilization study team led by
Installation Deputy Commander Lt. Col. Mark Greenwood.
That team contacted key stakeholders involved with mobilization
operations either as service providers or policy makers or as
organizations or individuals receiving mobilization support from Fort
McCoy.
Fournier said the suggestions the team collected from these
stakeholders were categorized into three major issue areas for further
analysis:
Category I - Systemic issues affecting installation
mobilization operations that were beyond Fort McCoy's authority to
change. These types of
issues will be documented and sent to higher headquarters for further
consideration.
Category II - Fort McCoy mobilization issues that were within
the authority of the installation commander to address and change.
These issues were brought before the Executive Steering Committee,
which is chaired by the installation commander, for review and
approval.
Category III - Organizational issues (product or service
specific) that, from a customer perspective, require further
consideration. Directors
received these issues for analysis, and where necessary, changes were
made to address concerns regarding service quality, product quantity,
facility operating hours, etc.
The third aspect of this mobilization assessment involved a
senior-leader review as to how the installation utilized its Garrison
Support Unit (6015th GSU) since this augmentation staff arrived in
January 2003, and whether such organizational entities as Troop
Command (6015th GSU), the Mobilization Operations Center (MOC), the
Unit Reception Center (URC), and the Logistics Operations Center
(LOC), which were established expressly in response to OIF-Phase I,
should be retained or changed, Fournier said.
"As a result of this aspect of the analysis, major
organizational and operational changes have been made that will have a
direct and positive impact on improving overall mobilization support
effectiveness and efficiency at this installation," Fournier
said. "These
changes will be in effect during mobilization support activities
associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom-Phase II."
A Troop Command organization comprised of 6015th personnel
performing various mobilization staff support functions (S-1, S-3,
S-4, etc.) has been eliminated, Fournier said. As a result, the Fort McCoy garrison directorates now will
have total responsibility to perform all mobilization support
functions that previously were assigned to and performed by that Troop
Command organization. All
6015th personnel remaining on active duty will be fully integrated
into the garrison organization structure (directorates and special
staff offices).
This change will totally align all mobilization and
non-mobilization functions and procedures and the personnel performing
that work together under the command and control of the same
"process owner," thereby eliminating duplication of effort,
streamlining inter-department communications, and reducing process
cycle time, while improving the quality of the support provided to the
mobilized Soldier, he said.
Fully integrating mobilization planning and execution within
the garrison, as opposed to assigning these responsibilities to a
separate entity like Troop Command, also will provide for the
institutionalization of mobilization expertise within the installation
work force, ensuring these competencies are sustained beyond a date
when 6015th personnel are no longer available to provide this staff
assistance, Fournier said.
"We have to build and retain a base of mobilization
experience resident within the installation full-time staff so that we
have the internal knowledge base and skill set necessary to allow us
to respond to any future power-projection-related mission," he
said.
Fournier noted that many of the Fort McCoy personnel who
supported Operations Desert Shield and Storm have since left the
installation due to retirements and other actions.
"Replacing and sustaining that core of experience is
important to the future success of Fort McCoy," he said.
"While the GSU provided a superb augmentation throughout OIF-Phase
I, it is apparent that power-projection missions have become a
continuing way of doing business at this installation, so that in the
future, we no longer will go years between major mobilization missions
as happened after the first Gulf War.
Having GSU personnel and the full-time Fort McCoy staff work
side by side will only enhance our ability to respond to these new
mission challenges since the Global War on Terrorism will not be a
short-term duration event."
Mobilization support functions and tasks previously performed
at the LOC, MOC and URC now will be incorporated into a one-stop
support site called the Mobilized Unit In-processing Center (MUIC).
The MUIC will be responsible for mobilization and demobilization
planning and coordinating. It
will be a first-stop, customer-oriented focal point for ensuring
mobilized units can deploy to standard.
"The MUIC will be the location where the key unit-related
in-processing actions will be accomplished and the Unit Readiness
Improvement Plan will be prepared," Fournier said. "The
establishment of a MUIC aligns these functions into an organizational
configuration that is doctrinally consistent. It also eliminates the
need for unit personnel to have to visit several different locations
in order to complete support actions."
"The Soldier Readiness Center will continue to operate in
its current location, where individual, Soldier-related in-processing
tasks, such as medical, personnel and legal support, will be
accomplished," he said.
Another change, Fournier said, includes the role and
responsibility of the Mobilization Support Battalion.
This organization will provide headquarters-company-type
support to mobilized units, mobilized support units, medical-hold
personnel, as well as to Fort McCoy garrison personnel.
Another new organization, a Personnel Administration Center,
will be established during OIF-Phase II, Fournier said.
"This organization, under the supervision of the
Directorate of Community Activities, will perform various military
personnel management functions, which, heretofore, were performed by
Troop Command. In
addition, the use of mobilization Liaison Teams will be
eliminated." Instead,
Contact Teams, established internally from within the MUIC staff, will
perform a newly defined customer-assistance role in support of each
mobilized unit arriving at Fort McCoy.
With the assessment of mobilization processes and procedures
nearly completed and the associated improvements being implemented,
Fournier said this same type of bottom-up operating assessment would
be applied to the installation's demobilization processes beginning
the later part of calendar year 2004.
"Continually striving to challenge the status quo and
seeking to improve what we do for our primary customer -- the Soldier
-- is the best contribution the installation work force can make to
ensuring Fort McCoy remains a relevant and viable Power Projection
Platform for years to come," he said.
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