Photos

Tuesday 28 December

Dear Family and Friends,
Tuesday 12/28: This morning the weather was 30 degrees but it felt like 23. The sky was clear. I mention that because the sky fills with dust from throughout the day that the camp becomes a dust bunny like Pig Pen shaking his security blanket. I stood on the operations center roof and took some photos to the East and to the West:
[Photos still do not post... sigh.  I'll try again tomorrow.]Quite breathtaking! By midday, the mountains become obscured by the prevailing dust cloud.
Oh for Christmas, some of our Indian foreign nationals put some decorations on our tree:

It turned out pretty festive.
Except for our early evening rocket attacks, things are pretty benign. It would be easy to forget that we are in a warzone, if it wasn’t for the daily booms. It seems to me that the attacks are like the drunk driver careening down the avenue. If you drive defensively and hit the floor in the first few seconds after the siren sounds, you are mitigating risks. Once the driver passes (even though it might have been a close call) or you lie on the floor and hear the rocket burst elsewhere, life is good. Keep driving or get warmly dressed and trundle out to the bunker for a 45 minutes commune with 20 of your best friends.
Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays. I think of you often but I don’t wish you were here…
Love, Chris

Sunday December 26

It's 4 pm the day after Christmas.  I worked the first half day at our Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) work site.  [Photos exist but my loaner computer doesn't have adobe reader.  Go figure.]  This is the first DLA distribution facility deployed to a war zone and run by a contractor called Safe Ports.  They are a small, woman owned business making a valiant go of it with their staff of expatriates and foreign nationals from India (they are the hardest working team I have ever watched).  Part of their contract is to incorporate process improvement into their implementation. That's what I do. 

Already, I baselined existing government DLA throughput in preparation for a 1 January contractor assumption of responsibility.  The site is operated 24x7 with meetings at7 am and 7 pm (the normal work day).  So far, the days come and go pretty fast.

Enough of that silly stuff, what's the food and weather like? 

The food is generous and really quite good with multiple selections of prepared main courses and fresh and cooked side dishes, soup and all the drinks you guzzle.  Pallets of bottled water are distributed throughout the tent city area.  As you might imagine, meals are the training highlight of the day.  [Sounds like camp, doesn’t it.]  I really like Cliff bars for the taking.  Therefore, lunch can be deferred for a workout.

The only difference from church camp and Kandahar Air Field (KAF from now on) is that there are bad guys just outside the gate.  On Christmas Eve at 1900 (7 pm), a couple of rockets made some distant noise.  Afterwards, we enjoyed standing in the outside concrete bunkers, they call T (for Texas) blocks. The weather was a brisk 34 degrees and I’m surprised no one started singing carols.  [Considering the ethnic and religions backgrounds of our team, I really not surprised.]  A young Jordanian and I were discussing the poor quality of Nike shoes made in China and sold in the mid-East and that they cost the same as the higher quality ones sold in the US.  Go figure, again.

Speaking of carols, me and 20,000 of my closest armed friends enjoyed singing Christmas Carols to the 10^th Mountain Division band on Christmas Eve.  There wasn’t that many people gathered together on the Kandahar Boardwalk (where all the pleasures of TGIF, KFC and one lone ATM await a lonely GI’s pleasure) but there were a bunch of folds from all allied contries.  Why, even Lance Armstrong was here two days before to MC a rock and roll band that I never heard of.  [I missed that highlight.]


Photos are coming once I figure out how… 
Happy New Year is next.

The Journey Begins 19 Dec

Dear Family and Friends,

Below is the job I have been tasked to perform:

On the DLA Distribution Kandahar Afghanistan program, the prime contractor desires to adopt and institutionalize Lean Six Sigma as the standard for process documentation and continuous process improvement. To the extent possible, the company would like to create and to retain standard business process mapping methodology.

Background:  The primary corporate business processes have been documented with lean/six sigma methodology as a way to communicate standard procedures, ensure continuity, enable scaling, conduct new employee training and to provide guidance to employees at all levels that perform routine operational functions. The purpose of this process is to ensure that reliable and repeatable standards are followed for conducting routine business transactions. Currently, the prime contractor is not currently ISO9001 certified but strives to attain future certification as well as institutionalize continuous improvement through lean/six sigma across all of its programs.

In 2007, the prime contractor also used the same methodology to rapidly design and develop operational processes which were used to support the Spare, Repair and After Market Parts program. The combination of documented “mapped” processes enabled the company to ramp from zero to $140M+ in annual part transaction value for more than 15000 SKUs in under 90 days.

My intent is to facilitate the current warehousing process at Kandahar Air Field (KAF) during the first 30 days as “proof of concept” and expand this standard work and training to other areas of value both contractor and government customers.  Currently, their warehouse consists of an “air building” with steel containers used to store organizational equipment, petroleum, oil, lubricants and spare parts.  Square footage, numbers of individual items handled over a standard interval of time are all unknown but not hard questions to answer. 

Furthermore, they are constructing a new steel-reinforced-concrete warehouse to enhance operations.  Warehouses usually don’t take long to construct but there may be mitigating circumstance overseas that do not exist in Conus.

=======================

So much for the hard details…  Softer issues have been, establishing contract funding and a letter of authorization with the government contractor.  Plus, working between different Lockheed companies presents its own share of complications that delayed my departure from 14 December until my new departure date of 19 December (tomorrow).  The delay provided opportunity to attend a 3 day indoctrination of Afghanistan and Iraq cultural issues and military rules of engagement required of all government and contractors going into a wartime area of operation. 

While waiting to deploy, I drove 4 hours late on Monday evening to Houston and began early morning briefings the next day.  This brought back memories of Parris Island (USMC drill field).  The only detail missing was the recuit's “yellow footprints” and screaming DI’s.  There were approximately 100 KBR employees preparing to depart immediately into great unknown and were only awaiting medical clearance.  KBR (check this firm out on google) provides Conus Recruitment Course (CRC) training required for all incoming contractors. 

They were gladly willing to push me and one other fellow from Presidential Airways (another story in the mix) through the lecture grind(minus medical).  Looking across a room of both men and women (20:1 ratio) varying in age from 20 to 65, was quite sobering.  There was none of the swagger and bravado associated with a room full of soldiers.  These were people who had their own personal story about why they chose this lucrative but potentially dangerous line of business, if only for a one year contract duration.

Finally and most importantly, I would like to share my "shock and awe" about my family who support me on this search for the Holy Grail.   My wife Nancy surprised me when she agreed to my all expense paid vacation to Afghanistan at the onset.  Plus all my family and friends have been most indulgent.  I appreciate their faith and willingness to share me with the Afghani's during the upcoming holidays. 

Oh, my address overseas is:

DLA Distribution Kandahar Afghanistan (DDKA)

Kandahar Airfield

APO 09355 AE

Love to you all,

Chris