LEAN - what is it?

[Bag Man]

So, anybody know what LEAN is all about?

[totalwar]

Lean is simply the thought process, not a tool, you use to look at your business whether it is manufacturing, service or any other activity where you have a supplier and a customer/receiver.

The origins of Lean date back well before the twentieth century even though it wasn't called Lean. The word Lean came from a student at MIT while he was doing research to discover the differences between some Japanese carmakers and the traditional North American carmakers.

Its not about downsizing or saving money but mainly about becoming more efficient. It is very succesfull but does take time and energy to implement. It has been used extensively in the FAA and in the surface fleet.

[Maple 01]

The FAA you say? I remember them; didn't they fly Harriers at one time? Just how LEAN can you get - remove the aircraft become 'more efficient' :rolleyes:

I'd hate to think it was just another 'tool' for the bean-counters to cut us back while increasing the operational tempo.

[C130 Techie]

If you read the postings on the Centralised Engineering at Lyneham Thread

LEAN = manpower cuts, low morale and total chaos.

Having witnessed it at first hand this seems like a fairly accurate definition:(

[BootFlap]

You think LEAN is bad?

Most bases are being collapsed forward, LEANed back and the latest I heard was being FISTed! (Future Integrated Support Team)

Sounds like a fishheads dream!!!!!!!!:ok: :ok: :ok:

[totalwar]

LEAN isn't bad. LEAN is a great way to make your organisation more efficient. It doesn't save money (in fact it costs money) it doesn't make people redundant. It merely ensures that as you go about your daily business you are more efficient. Those of you who are cynical have clearly not had any exposure to or run a LEAN Roadmap.
Until LEAN came along I continually felty I was doing the work of 2 blokes. Now, with planning and thought I take every Friday afternoon off and rarely work beyond 4pm.

[engineer(retard)]

"Until LEAN came along I continually felty I was doing the work of 2 blokes. Now, with planning and thought I take every Friday afternoon off and rarely work beyond 4pm"

That'll be laurel and hardy :O

and you are in the RN - I claim my £5

[C130 Techie]

Totalwar you do spout some utter cr@p

There is no way that the axing of 120 engineering posts at Lyneham at the same time as the implementation of LEAN is a coincidence.

LEAN = cuts.

[Bag Man]

Sounds like there is an adult out there that has done a 2-day course at Ashridge - and decided to implement LEAN MANUFACTURING (yes, it originates in manufacturing) to servicing aircraft.

Bet he gets promoted - regardless of success/failure.

(Gosh, I am so grumpy today - need a spin pill.)

[totalwar]

You have to remember that the 120 jobs at Lyneham were jobs which were wasteful. People doing bugger all, all day long. So LEAN managed to make Lyneham more efficient and got rid of them.

[BEagle]

I can think of one post at Yeovilton which should go RIGHT NOW!

[Wappy Tupper]

''People doing bugger all, all day long....'' (except surf the net)

How LEAN is YOUR job TW?? Not very by the look of it !

:oh:

[BootFlap]

BEagle

I agree, and would be more than happy to be the one announcing it!

Totalwar,

on what do you base the following?

You have to remember that the 120 jobs at Lyneham were jobs which were wasteful. People doing bugger all, all day long.

I would suggest you back up this statement, or retract it. If I was one of the 120 I would not be impressed with your sweeping assumption. Let me put it to you another way, imagine if I posted this:

'RN Pinger fleet scrapped as there is no credible sub-surface threat. 2000 Sailors made redundant because they were doing bugger all, all day long.'

Emotive, isn't it?

[vecvechookattack]

'RN Pinger fleet scrapped as there is no credible sub-surface threat

Or even better how about.....

RN Pinger fleet scrapped as there are no serviceable aircraft. 30 aircraft mothballed and 50 aircrew made redundant.

At least the pinger snag isn't their problem.

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

Why do you lot fall for it everytime:rolleyes:

totalw"ank"er comes in here and starts a row and you all take the bait:rolleyes:

If you ignore his ill informed post's and simply discuss around him he will, like all children do, get bored and simply go away:ok:

Back to the thread then.......

LEAN = cuts = cost saving = some senior feckwits promotion......not a difficult concept to grasp:rolleyes:

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

[Fire 'n' Forget]

The FAA you say? I remember them; didn't they fly Harriers at one time? Just how LEAN can you get - remove the aircraft become 'more efficient'

Maple01 priceless mate, the boss just stuck his head round door to see what i was laughing about, thinking on the feet required, agh well back to work.

[Bag Man]

BootFlat

Please be my best mate.

I love your thoughts.

[totalwar]

LEAN doesnt mean cost cutting at all. In my last job a LEAN roadmap suggested we didn't have enough people and following the report we employed 2 more guys to help.

LEAN is about efficiency. If your work place is inefficient then the LEAN process will help it achieve efficiency. If that means spennding money to become more time efficient then so be it. Or if it means employing more people to improve the units efficieny then great. It also works both ways and if your unit can be made more efficient by sacking people then they are clearly excess and are not required on the voyage.

[rafloo]

I was at Lyneham during the Process to cut 120 jobs and I have to say that Lyneham today is a lot better and works a lot better without them.
Food's also a lot better since we got rid of that malingerer

[soddim]

I remember an army major many years ago - he was quite surprised when I suggested that he had a really easy job if he could play golf every day. He told me something I will always remember - "Trouble with you air force types is that you are always so busy. If we go to war how will you find the time? - all I'll have to do is give up golf"!

If LEAN means giving up golf then we won't have time to fight a war.

[Echo 5]

Wilts,

" If you ignore his ill informed post's and simply discuss around him he will, like all children do, get bored and simply go away "

Seem to remember this same philosophy being applied to isitd and Dummy Run on another thread. Think we had about a 50 % success rate !!

Regards to all,

E5:)

[Bag Man]

Sounds like LEAN is codeword for 'cut the crab fat'.

[Oggin Aviator]

Steady on old chap - they arent quite ready for a reality pill.

[hobie]

So, anybody know what LEAN is all about?
read all about it here ....

http://www.leanadvisors.com/Lean/roadmap.cfm

[Maple 01]

I know bull&hit when I read it

'Success through knowledge?'

Sounds like

'Frontline first'
'Options for change'
‘Strength through joy’
etc

What's wrong with 'Death through superior firepower – especially to accountants’?

[lineslime]

rafloo

I suggest you drag your ar$e down to either J2 or J3 and speak to those techies who are suffering form this lean bo!!ock$. I don't think anyone will tell you it is a better place and works better, I think the aircrew may well agree with me on this. Perhaps your name says a lot about you as a person, you are in the RAF and are also full of $hit! Take a good hard look at the Lyneham thread if you need a reality check. Besides I don't see how the loss of 120 personnel from the aircraft maint' part of eng wing will improve the food, you to$$er.

[Bag Man]

Fromt the link above:

'eliminating activities that are considered waste'

Activities like stand-easy and lunch half-hour?

[C130 Techie]

Lineslime

Thanks you have saved me the trouble of responding to rafloo and wasting alot of good expletives. I didn`t believe there could be 2 people as ignorant as totalwar on these forums at the same time.

Always _Broken_In_Wilts

Sorry sometimes its hard to resist the bait.

For the ill informed like Rafloo the 120 engineering posts have yet to be cut. LEAN was implemented in Dec 2004 as the means to achieve this

[Widger]

All golfers should be shot at birth...Me? I still have sex with my wife!

[soddim]

I see that widger has managed a typical pprune educated input.

I wonder if he satisfies his wife?

[Widger]

Of course I do...That's why I don't play Golf!






Computer says no!

[soddim]

Sounds to me as if she would be happier if you did - and maybe you would be too.

[Widger]

Nah,

think I'll just take up sitting in front of the computer all day, talking Cr@p to a load of strangers instead of getting out and talking to all the staff!

Anyway got to go soon, it's the weekend and I have a wife to satisfy. Looking forward to more B@@l@cks being spouted next week.

;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

[soddim]

Have a good week-end and watch out for golfers who didn't get shot at birth.

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

In my experiance those who despise golf, or any other ball sport for that matter are normally so spherically challenged that they could'nt hit a cows ar@e with a banjo:E ......just my humble opinion:ok:

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

[BEagle]

Either that or they've just grown out of playing ball games... As I did at 17 after many years of cold, wet, muddy pursuit of pointy balls around the school pitches. 5 days per week (except CCF Mondays) unless the 1st XV was playing at home. Even then we had to watch... It didn't take the brains of a rocket scientist to work out that those obsessed with throwing, kicking and hitting balls probably had little else with which to stimulate their little worlds.

But if that's their bag - or rather ball bag - baby....

And I definitely share the same view of golf as Mark Twain and Jeremy Clarkson!

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

So if given a banjo and placed in close proximity to a bovine bum how would you fare Beags:E

all speling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

[The Rocket]

Well, obviously I'd play it a little tune, and then see how far Ermintude would let me go!!!!:p :p :p

[GentlemensRelish]

I am currently serving at Lyneham and "Lean" really works! It is so simple, all you have to do is cut manpower, and severly reduce the levels of Health & Safety, Tool Control and Quality. Which in return gives the troops an increase in duties and a massive reduction in morale. Who needs a happy workforce anyway?

[Pontius Navigator]

Soddim, your golfing anecdote was spot on. In the 80s we were on 'ops' for 10 days with a full training flying programme thrown in. This meant many wives were housebound out in the sticks and unable to do the Saturday shop.

On day 11 the flight commander said he had run out of bed in his freezer and would have to go shopping that afternoon.

YES BOSS we all shouted we're out of food too.

We were f******* nadgered and we were not at war!

Now whenever Tone decides to send another gunboat, which of course the Navy no longer has enough people to man then the RAF has to fly people and spares out and the Army has to secure the tail.

Sorry, I forgot, the tail aint there anymore.

[FJJP]

This is yet another example of the inappropriate application of civilian business processes to military operations. It's all very well applying the LEAN process to day-to-day working practices in peacetime, but it will prove to be a severe handicap in war ops.

The same thing happened with JUST-IN-TIME logistics. The concept is extremely cost effective, in that spares and equipment are supplied on an as-required basis. Now, for a production line in a factory, the requirement can be predicted many months in advance and a contract for supply laid; hence there is no need to maintain large quantities of components, tying up capital that could be used elsewhere - components are delivered just-in-time for their use during the manufacturing process. However, you can see that if something like the Falklands arises, there is not the time to build up a stock of essential spares to ship immediately to where they are needed. The last Gulf operation suffered extensively from the earlier adoption of that process.

And industry will not or cannot suddenly gear up at short notice to produce quantities of materiel that the Forces need in the short run-up to any conflict. We are not in the same situation as WWII, where the whole country was put on a war footing specifically to support the Armed Forces.

LEAN is the same. You can't cut out all the 'fat', because you are going to need extra TRAINED bodies to supplement the war machine at all levels, from the front to the rear echelons. Furthermore, war ops carries its own consequences for LEAN. For example, during GW1, the powers that be refused to allow the introduction of war servicing schedules; that meant that hours- and time-related servicing was deferred, and a monstrous post-war catch-up severely limited the ac availability for post war ops, as well as putting a huge strain on the engineering organisation. Now apply LEAN to that scenario, and it will be interesting to watch the engineering recovery process, at the same time conducting post war support ops.

What happened was that some enterprising Engineer saw LEAN as an excellent, efficiency-promoting process that he considered could be applied to Service ops. Having written copious papers, complete with convincing stats and case studies, persuaded the powers-that-be that efficiency would go through the roof [probably accompanied by huge financial savings - easy to incorporate into the arguments]. Unfortunately, it was not thought through with regard to the full picture; we are therefore saddled with yet another scheme that will come back and bite us a few years down the line. Meantime, tea, medals and promotion all round and a few more articles making the Forces engineers look good in the journals of the Institute of Directors, the Chartered Management Institute, et al….

LEAN will be back to bite us in a few years - I will remind you in my 'I told you so' post. Unfortunately, the additional cost will include body bags...

[Bag Man]

Here, here.

Question is, if (when) it turns out to be a disaster, who will be held responsible?

[tucumseh]

FJJP

Fully agree with your assessment, although I’d defend engineers by saying not all think that way, and add that many problems were caused by suppliers.

In late 1990 RAF suppliers at Harrogate decided to implement a policy whereby they would wait for an outstanding demand before initiating (a) procurement or (b) repair. Of course, the fact that this relied entirely upon compressing a 6 – 18 month lead time into two days bothered them not, as it reduced the cost of spares holdings. RN engineering staffs who complained were shot down and like-minded MoD(PE) staffs were carpeted by SM’s Air Cdre; and when they didn’t desist, they wheeled out an AVM who threatened ever more dire consequences.

Related to the above, and at the same time, the same people refused to keep the RN’s war reserves and Contingency stocks serviceable. (Good move in 1990!).

Nor were the RN happy with some key (fully repairable) avionic LRUs being declared Consumable. Some joker obviously thought this would save on repair costs (true), happy in the knowledge that another branch would have to find infinitely more money to replace perfectly good LRUs which had been scrapped. In mitigation, we had to pretend we’d scrapped them, and arrange for repairs to be carried out on the quiet at 4th line. (Don’t ask, but this minor deceit saved millions).

As someone who witnessed this first hand, what struck me was the typical RN representation was CPO, or perhaps a civilian engineer; whereas the RAF suppliers would willingly field an Air Cdre or AVM to bully such juniors, who were only trying to help their users (you), into submission. Not the slightest interest in wasted money or the effect on front line – they couldn’t see past the fact some jumped up minion could have the temerity to challenge these practices. Nothing has changed. The RN continued to suffer for many years, as I’m sure Bagman knows. I’m equally sure that he and some of his colleagues would like to get their hands on the genius who agreed that 10 LRUs was sufficient to achieve a full fleet fit to 13 AEWs (never mind spares)! That’s not lean, that’s lunacy. Engineers sorted that one out. Again, don’t ask, but the story of an Admiral (which is indicative of the value) being asked to sign approval to procure, long after delivery, is legendary.

Hope this adds some perspective.

[RonRandom]

You're all wrong. Lean is something you do when at a bar. A bar is a place to drink beer. Most Service Messes have a bar. Give it a go.

[Pontius Navigator]

I know someone at an air base that has Hercs somewhere in Wilts who was criticised for having only 40% of the storage area occupied with spares.

It was pointed out that half the empty building was between the tops or the racks and the roof. The rest of the missing spares were either on their way forward or on their way back to get fixed.

The mission was NOT to have full shelves.

OTOH, the Just in Time principle can be seen every weekend in the papers: Order XXXX widget, allow 28 days for delivery = When we get all the punters orders in we will fax China for the widgets. Then we will air freight them to you once we have bought them.

I just hope the next war is not against our major supplier.

[FJJP]

tucumseh

My post was not meant to be a sideswipe at engineers or suppliers, both branches with whom I have served alongside and for whom I have the greatest respect.

Rather it was aimed at those high level military and civil servant 'experts', who ultimately will not be held to account for their actions. Also to those who swallowed this management speak hook, line and sinker without thinking it through - they could not see past the words 'efficiency' and 'economy', their driving force towards their MBE and OBEs.

My apologies to those who thought it was aimed at them - not so.

FJJP

[Red Line Entry]

FJJP,

Although you make some good points, with which I fully agree, the decision in 1990/91 to stay on a peacetime maintenance schedule was both brave and sensible.

Although we were initially given authority to waive maintenance early on in the deployment, this was reversed sometime around Nov 90. In the event, sticking to normal peacetime schedules did not impact on us achieving the task (at Dhahran anyway!). What it did save was the absolute chaos that would have followed in Mar 91 if we had just thrown the rule book out the window at the start.

Far better to have had a manageable backlog of deferred maintenance than the aircraft groundings that would have followed in the peacetime because we would have flown past the authorised limits.

Clearly, if the conflict had been a real balls to the wall war (in terms of national survival I mean, clearly no slur intended on those who fought and died!) then the rules would have gone out the window and stayed there. As it was, the decision allowed us to recover to do further ops far faster than any other option.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Is the following an example of lean?

HMS SPARE PARTS (http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/27/nnavy27.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/27/ixhome.html)

[pr00ne]

WEBF,

No!

That s an example of something called "robbing" and has gone on in all 3 services since Pontius was a pilot.

[The Rocket]

Pr00ne,

No, actually, that's an example of "Cannibalisation" as the term "Robbing" has been deemed no longer acceptable. :8

pushes glasses back up nose :p

[Red Line Entry]

Robbing is taking parts from an item of equipment, aircraft etc when the intention is to later replace the robbed parts so that the donor parent item will later be made serviceable.

Cannibalisation is taking parts from an item for which there is no intention to make it serviceable in the future. (eg cat 5 or scrapped aircraft or LRUs)

This thread has attracted a lot of negative criticism regarding the lean process and I agree that the website that was linked seems a typical example of outside consultants setting themselves up as the arbiters of all that is good.

However, it is surely our very job (assuming readers are of higher rank than SAC) to seek better ways of doing our business. If that means cutting jobs then so be it, if it means establishing more posts then so be it. The problem stems from the fact that too often we are told that we must achieve measurable reductions in costs without any consideration being made over effectiveness or efficiency.

Efficiency is not a dirty word ("Crevice, there's a dirty word Blackadder"). What fouls it all up is the context in which this "efficiency" has to be implemented.

[Sir Loin]

Actually Red Line Entry, Cannibalisation is exactly the same thing as "Robbing" but the name has now changed.

There has never been a differentiation between robbing and cannibalisation

You now have to raise a cannibalisation form to take even the smallest part from an aircraft regardless of whether you mean to replace the part or not.

Are you an engineer? Do you work on the aircraft? I hate to say this, but I don't think you do. Cannibalisation chits are now the norm if you want to "rob" aircraft spares, regardless of whether they will be replaced or not. The system changed about a year and a half ago.

See the AP100-C02 fella, cos paperworks a gas;)

[BEagle]

Ah yes - 'robbing', 'cannibalization' or whatever else you care to term it was once described by a colleague as "Like borrowing your mate's tyres to get your car through the MoT".

Scrapheap Challenge maintenance practices - is that really what the Rental Air Farce is reduced to these days?

[engineer(retard)]

I suspect that the robbing chit has been raised to highlight critical spares shortages and account for the costs of spares shortages. A rise in the incidence of robbing is often the first sign that the supply system has a problem. Previously, the loggies had to rely on anecdotal evidence to know that this was occurring at the front line.

Additionaly, robbing carries a cost in manpower and equipment, as you now have to repair 2 items, the U/S one and the donor.

Retard

[tucumseh]

I tend to agree with Red Line Entry when he says,

“Robbing is taking parts from an item of equipment, aircraft etc when the intention is to later replace the robbed parts so that the donor parent item will later be made serviceable.

Cannibalisation is taking parts from an item for which there is no intention to make it serviceable in the future. (eg cat 5 or scrapped aircraft or LRUs)”


While I don’t doubt there is an AP which says they are the same thing, it wouldn’t be the first time such a change has been made through a simple error. Similar to the common mistake of saying a mod set and mod kit is the same thing, when they’re not. Certainly, in the RN it is common for avionics to have a Maintenance Policy of “repair by Cannibalisation”, but never “by robbery”, because they make this precise distinction. The Bendix RT221 VHF was a good example. It had been declared obsolescent, but not obsolete, so a replacement could be delayed and money spent elsewhere because there was sufficient surplus to cannibalise, with no intention or need to make them all serviceable. Failure to approve robbery action is also one of the common cause of LRUs being stacked up at 4th line, exacerbating supply problems.


Also in the RN, this time Lynx, it was common for users to complain, for example, about shortage of radar LRUs. (Perhaps not so common now that the fleet is half what it was). Few realised that the approved Fit Policy excluded Engineering Pool aircraft. Therefore, all a/c going into say Fleetlands, had to have their radar removed to support the front line. This was not robbery per se, but a deliberate cost saving policy, that would also be used if it was known that a high percentage of a/c repairs involved the removal of the radar anyway.


Engineer is right when he says, “A rise in the incidence of robbing is often the first sign that the supply system has a problem”. In the RN, all materiel and financial provisioning is based on the assumption that the 2nd line recovery rate will be 72-80% (the Requirement Manager specifies the % based on engineering judgement). The rule of thumb is that if the RR falls to 50%, then robbery is highly likely. It is therefore a primary role of the Support Authority to maintain the recovery rate. An onerous task as he/she no longer has control over most of the factors affecting these parameters.

[Red Line Entry]

Sir Loin,

It's a fair cop - I am an engineer but have spent the last 2 years serving Her Majesty as far away from aircraft and their bits as is possible to get!

"The system changed about a year and a half ago."

Shows how quickly you lose touch!!

Thanks for the update (although I fail to see any advantage in the new terminology - seems to promote confusion)

[Sir Loin]

Red Line Entry,

I agree with you completely about the new terminology promoting confusion. There seems to have been no logic behind the name change whatsoever, other than "Change for Changes sake"

Mind you, it probably helped somebody get their promotion at Innsworth.:yuk:

Apologies also if my last post seemed a little shirty. A bad day and alcohol are a terrible combination.

[ZH875]

Reason for name change is simple:

Stn Cdr to OC Eng - How many Robs carried out this month.

OC Eng to Stn Cdr - None Sir.

Stn Cdr goes away happy. One day their Bigships will realise the name has changed.

[pr00ne]

Beagle,

“is that really what the Rental Air Farce is reduced to these days?”

Oh come on Beagle!

Robbing is as old as the Air Force and you know it. Are you seriously telling me that in all your time with Aunty Betties flying club you were never aware of; hangar queens, spares-ships, Christmas trees, etc etc etc. Especially if you spent time on the F-4 and Buccaneer!

The early days of the Toom in RAFG were notorious for robbed aircraft scattered all over Bruggen and Laarbruch, as soon as a jet entered any stage of servicing it was like witnessing a decent car parked up unattended in a Liverpool back street!

Changing the terminology to something like cannibalisation is rather funny though…………….

What do they call Rob chits now?

[ZH875]

What do they call Rob chits now?
Cannibalization Chits ....Obvious innit!!

[16 blades]

I'm willing to hazard that back in BEag's day we had enough aircraft to rob without adversely affecting our capabilities....

16B

[engineer(retard)]

Why rob an aircraft, if you can jack up the nosewheel and put on a new frame. Far easier.

[vecvechookattack]

Lean means combining two perfectly good squadrons and making one hell of a mess.

[lineslime]

And what a mess. Still it will all be sorted when Lyneham closes in 2012, or just moved to a new location and made worse. The latter seems most likely.

[vecvechookattack]

Maybe thats what LEAN is all about....a sublime method to make us all move around the country, generally staying with the same command or structure but just moving...priceless..

[lineslime]

Given the way the modern military is going it wouldn't supprise me in the least.

[Pontius Navigator]

In Beags day (and mine) we had 'In Use Reserves' Aircraft that had no authorised scaling, fuel, stores etc but which we could use but 'robbing' labour and fuel from the rest of the fleet.

Bomber Command also had a fairly large reserve of aircraft squirreled away.

In 1964 we had 3xMk 1 Vulcan Sqns, 3xMk 2 Vulcan FF and 3xMk 2 Vulcan BS and the last Mk2 (ex-Skybolt) had been delivered. Then the Mk 1s were replaced with Mk 2s and the MK2BS disappeared and the only slack cut in Strike Command was the disbandment of 12 Sqn. In other words 5 Sqns of Mk 2 ac came from the Command spares holding!

[totalwar]

Just heard from my oppo in the pub that the Lynx fleet are being buggered about with again.
Notwithstanding the move from Portland, the Richmond accident leading to the Engine crisis, the Portland accident..etc..

Now it is the plan to move them again,..!!!!

Somebody needs to shout STOP !!!! the decision to move them again is madness and has no benefit to the RN whatsoever. (Apart from making life easier for an AEM diong an AF/BF).

It just seemed like those guys were getting themselves back to some sort of stability when this comes along.

No doubt they will be on their way to Culdrose within the next 10 years as well.... don't suppose it will be worth unpacking eh?

[Bigtop]

LEAN - many, many moons ago when I was a civvy in a factory we called it 'Time and Motion Study'. How quickly and efficiently could you move a raw product from the point of delivery, through the production process and out to the despatch bay.

Back then in my industry we had 3 factories and over 1000 employees in each - by the end of the time and motion study we had one factory and only 300 people. The bitter twist was that production output was up by 30%!!! Ohhh bugger!!!
That was mostly due to CNC machine computerisation and mechanisation though.

Ahhh its so good to see the wheel going round again!!!!!!

[Two's in]

US Army Aviation have completely eradicated cannibalization and robbing - mind you, they do have this odd thing called "controlled substitution". Still, what's in a name?

As for LEAN etc, the point most people miss is that all of these activities have a single goal - to make fat cat shareholders even fatter. These days, as a pawn of the capitalist conspiracy, I have no problem with making obscene profits, but the Military is not, and never has been about profit.

When Lyneham mates extract Percy Pongo and his chums from some godforsaken desert hell hole for some hard earned R&R, is that success measured in widgets not used, or maintenance time saved? - is it bo11ock$. Same for any operational scenario, the Service component is there to achive the military aim. Providing a military capability in support of Governement policy definitely has a price, but that is not the same as eroding morale, motivation and incentive through penny pinching and mindless bureaucratic initiatives.

If the Op Order ever says "Resupply Basrah, provide CAP, dominate the Battlespace, and realise saving of 24p in the Pound on maintenance and logistics support costs" you will know that the lunatics really are running the asylum.

[southside]

Good point. However, Im not sure that the Purpose of Leaning the Lynx Helicopter Foce is to make anyone fat. The purpose should be to make the LHF more efficient. Now, Im not sure how you can make the force more efficient by moving them 500 yards. Agreed, co-locating the force would be a good idea....but the southside is not being co-located...its just moving them closer.

This is a daft idea which should be stopped before someone thinks its serious.