Lean Six Sigma Analysis of Shipboard Audit Readiness on U.S. Navy Destroyer

Abstract

Over the last six years, the Department of the Defense (DOD) and Department of the Navy (DON) have ramped up efforts toward achieving financial audit readiness by dedicating additional resources and implementing new process changes in support of the DOD Financial Improvement Audit Readiness (FIAR) program. Despite increased emphasis on ensuring key supporting documentation availability during an audit, the DON still has issues regarding poor quality document submissions from lower-level units, which can ultimately lead to poor audit results. This project attempts to identify and improve upon root causes of quality defects in audit-related key supporting documentation onboard U.S. ships in the Pacific Surface Fleet using a Lean Six Sigma analysis. The recommendations provided in this study augment improvement processes currently in progress, and are sequenced to build momentum before addressing higher-risk priorities. The objective of this research is to develop a case study for use by DON FIAR that examines audit-related areas of improvement and the implementation of additional process changes at the unit level. The case study is meant to spur discussion on how the DON can benefit from Lean Six Sigma analysis to improve quality and mitigate the risk of audit failure.