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News | July 2, 2018

Thirteen employees complete black belt training

By DCMA Strategic Analysis and Planning Division

Newly trained continuous process improvement black belts are ready to tackle enhancements to the agency’s current business practices.

Thirteen Defense Contract Management Agency employees graduated from the black belt course April 27 after attending three weeks of hands-on training spread across three months. The black belt course provides instruction in advanced statistics, analysis and facilitation techniques to enable students to tackle complex problems at the contract management office, region and agency levels. The goal is for the black belts to lead teams updating business processes and implementing data-driven decisions, thus finding solutions for improved quality while reducing time and effort, and ultimately providing cost savings across the agency.

As part of the Strategic Analysis and Planning Division, the Continuous Process Improvement Office provides onsite black belt training once a year.

“The audience is for those at DCMA who have completed green belt training and proven themselves by leading a small process improvement team at the green belt level,” said Jason Pickart, the CPI instructional director who is a master black belt. “While the black belt training remains classroom based, the green belt training has moved to an online, on-demand format, to equip practitioners to timely solve local organization problems with the CPI project format.”

Pickart said both the onsite and online training will allow employees to continue to gain skills to help the agency review and revise its business processes.

“Looking forward towards the future, our 750-plus practitioners equipped with a CPI skillset will help the agency achieve success under the Business Capability Framework by equipping a significant portion of the workforce to pursue performance focused projects and lean our business processes at all levels across DCMA,” he said.

For more information about the CPI program or available training, contact Andrew Miskovich, CPI director and master black belt, at Andrew.Miskovich@dcma.mil, or visit https://360.dcma.mil/directorate/PH-DC/DCA/LSS/SitePages/Home.aspx (login required).