eNotes: News and Notes from the CLEP Network

LOG Tech

Defense Maintenance  - 15th to 16th October 2008, London, England

Defense Logistics The Through Life Challenge 10th to 11th November 2008, Rome, Italy

Delivering Results: Resolving to be Resolved

“Setting a goal is not the main thing.  It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.”   
                                                                                                                                                                                    –Tom Landry

 

“To mentor, educate, share knowledge and ideas to advance the profession of Logistics Engineering”

Do you know about these Conference events

Volume 1, Issue 2 August 2008

When is Critical Really Critical?

Turning a Critical Eye to Your Inventory
by Phillip Slater

There is an old saying that goes something like ‘a maintenance engineer never met a spare he didn’t like’. However, perhaps the maintenance engineer should not like his meta-spares quite so much. What’s a meta-spare? I’ll get to that.

In my work helping companies optimize their spare parts inventory management, I am almost always greeted by a new client with the exclamation ‘you can’t do anything about that spare, it is critical’. Critical spares are held in high regard and treated as untouchables. However, whether or not a spare is critical is not the point when it comes to inventory review, because you can still hold too much of a critical item. In my opinion, the comments I hear on critical spares are usually more emotional than scientific. Let me explain. More...

 

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We may be blowing it, big time.  We’ve got a problem and most of us are part of it.  The problem is this:  while we complain that there are not enough people in our profession, and that new, younger people are not coming in, we do not encourage just over half of the population to participate.  And, if some of them do try to take part, we often run them off.

 

That’s right—we are ignoring and discouraging women from entering the logistics field, and thus we are eliminating the contributions they could make to our community.

 

College statistics on women in engineering and science are not very encouraging.  Women are the majority of students in universities these days, but receive only 20% of BS degrees in engineering and physics, and even fewer – 14% -- of the degrees in computer science.  The women who do earn these degrees and find jobs then often find they are paid less, promoted less, and must put up with a whole lot of biases.  If that isn’t enough, workplace colleagues are often unfriendly, abusive and harassing.  So guess what:  women are leaving to go into other fields, and they are spreading the reasons why.

 

What can we do?

 

1. Encourage kids – girls and boys – beginning in elementary schools to get involved in math and science.

2. Encourage middle and high students to take every math and science course they can.

3. Encourage promising high school graduates to go into engineering, computer science, etc.

4. After graduation, help these kids get jobs.  Take their resumes to your companies or agencies, and help them open the doors.

5. Once the young people get into the workplace, mentor them, and don’t tolerate wrong comments and behavior from your colleagues.

                

I believe we have got to do these things for the future of our profession, for our own success, and for the young people of our country.

WAKE-UP CALL!

 

 

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Many exciting things are materializing within the Council of Logistics Engineering Professionals.  We are planning a variety of educational conferences and programs.  CLEP sections are growing and new sections are being established.  Many organizations are making agreements with CLEP for sponsorship of seminars.  Our members are supporting a number of conferences as presenters or panel members.  Our web site is taking shape as a source of logistics information for both members and non-members.  Our newsletter format has finally been established.  Our Board of Advisors is expanding,  And last, we are working with the RMS Partnership to present an excellent seminar this November.  I’d like to discuss the last three items briefly.

 

A major goal of CLEP is to provide education in the area of logistics and related disciplines.  A tool for doing this is the newsletter you are now reading.  We have been working to define a format that can be delivered via email and also be available on the CLEP web site.  Rather than provide a lengthy document with portions that may not be of interest to all, the newsletter will be short with hyperlinks to more detailed articles and information.  We hope this format works well for you.  We plan to email these newsletters on a monthly basis.  Please provide any thoughts, inputs, or suggestions for articles to our VP Communications

 

In accordance with the CLEP by-laws, we have established a Board of Advisors.  I am pleased to announce the addition of a new member to the board, Mr. James V. Jones.  Jim is well known in the logistics community as the author of numerous text books, including the Integrated Logistics Support Handbook.  As the president of Logistics Management Associates, he provides consulting, lecturing, and training worldwide.  Jim will be a great asset in furthering the CLEP educational goals.

 

CLEP in conjunction with the RMS Partnership is sponsoring a Government-Industry Workshop and Symposium entitled Using System Engineering to Improve RMS&L Requirements.  This training event will be held at the Waterford Conference Center in Springfield, VA on November 12-13. The Opening Keynote will be presented by Claude Bolton, former Assistant Secretary of the Army. The Army Keynote will be Richard Wittstruck from Ft. Monmouth; the Industry Keynote will be given by Wally Massenburg, Vice-President of BAE Systems. The Navy Keynote address is slated to be Thomas E. Laux, Program Executive Officer for Air ASW. Steve Urquhart of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics will provide a special presentation on RM&S Engineering.  In between the keynotes, there will be interactive panel discussions illustrating the issues and the commonalities across the services.  This distinctive training event, which provides 16 Continuous Learning Points for DoD acquisition personnel, is open

Message from the Chairman

for registration now. On-line registration and payment may be accomplished at www.rmspartnership.org. The non-member fee is only $250 and includes a CD of the presentations that cannot be obtained otherwise.  The fee for CLEP members is $225.

 

The two-day training event will be followed on 14 November by an intensive one-day pair of short courses dealing with Performance-Based Logistics and Lean Six Sigma in RMS&L. Both of these courses are taught by the respective lead professors from the Defense Acquisition University: PBL by Kevin Wedmark at Ft. Belvoir, and LSS by Marty Sherman from San Diego. Registration is accomplished at www.rmspartnership.org. This small class opportunity costs only $250 for non-members. The fee for CLEP members is $225.

 

The meeting was held Tuesday, 29 July 2008

Action Items:

10b.    Initiate better payment collection process: Use CLEP website to allow direct member payments for membership and functions, new membership and renewal membership right now is only accessible thru RMSP, partnership website.  Membership feedback has indicated that this process is somewhat difficult to follow.  The board agrees with the membership concerns and will act to set up an easier on-line registration on the CLEP site.

10c.     Huntsville conference: Coming May ‘09 in cooperation with LOGSA. Provide outline of activities. Volunteers are called to help manage and run certain aspects of the conference.  For more information contact VP Programs.

10d.    Nominations for VP Admin were requested from the membership, nominations will be reviewed and the position will be voted on by the board.

10f.     Review of Standards:  volunteers were asked to review and summarize activities relative to GEIA-0007.

10g.    Panel for RMS/P conference in Nov.: CLOSED. The Immediate Past President has assembled panel members to assist in the process.

Reports from Officers

RMS Partnership Representative: The Immediate Past President assembled a panel and some speakers for the RMS/P conference in Nov. Each panel member is given 20 minutes to speak. First day is a workshop and following days includes panels and papers. The membership Suggested DAU become involved.

It is recommended that CLEP be actively involved in this conference and take advantage of it and use as a marketing and educational tool current and future members.

VP Operations: It was suggested that CLEP begin to consider a timeline or plan for eventual independence from RMS/P and become a separate entity.

VP Administration: No report

VP Finance: The financial report was reviewed by the membership and received by the Executive Board.

VP Membership:  The approach for membership renewals was discussed; members should begin to receive their renewal information by the next meeting.  Membership communications will be accomplished using Icontact online tools as a secure communications method for notifying members about the renewal process.  This tool is made available as an RMS partnership benefit.

VP Education: Education representatives and volunteers will work with VP Programs for the May conference.  The board recommended teaming with an organization that does seminars across the country.  This prospect will be researched and discussed as seminar programs and dates begin to solidify.  CLEP will support representatives involved with the WBR conference and any media sponsors.

VP Communications: A new Newsletter is out in HTML format and distributed in webmail format. It is recommended that most articles and inserts particularly meeting minutes and other inputs be maintained on the CLEP website, however, until this capability is fully developed, submitted information will be formatted as best as possible to keep the membership informed of CLEP and partner activities. All members are asked to continue to look for new information to submit in future newsletters.

VP Programs: Plans for our first annual conference will be early May. For more information, or if you would like to volunteer please contact VP Programs.

Webmaster: The webpage continues to be Work In Progress and is updated as problems and information becomes available.  Comments, changes or suggestions should be sent to the CLEP Chairman.

Each of the sections were given the opportunity to report on the status and health of their membership.

New Action Items: None

Board of Officers Meeting of the Council of Logistics Engineering Professionals