Process Improvement in Navy Expeditionary Logistics

Presented at Western Decision Sciences Institute (WDSI 2017) conference April 4-8, 2017Continuous process improvement has been widely taught in business schools and has yielded real results and success in both for-profit and non-profit sectors. Though there have been many cases developed for use in business schools, few, if any, situate the topic in a military context. Further, expeditionary logistics presents managers with special problems of being removed from their supporting enterprise systems that process, track, and/or control of such logistical elements as purchase orders, inventory, distribution, receivables, and fulfillment. We present a case in a military setting that exposes students to the challenges of expeditionary logistics and takes them through the fundamentals of process analysis and process improvement