I'm sure you remember Rigga back in your time in the reputation of anyone connected with QA as a Quality Nazi. Fast forward to 3 tranches of redundancies and lean being introduced purely focused on cutting cost. Hey presto - lean is responsible for job cuts!!
Cut to a bay where Sgt Hairy-arsed Ol'fart has just got promoted to chief. Fortunately he knows exactly how this bay should run, he was in there as a Cpl. Hold on here comes some jumped up fecker from the Lean team (a stacker, no less) who proceeds to tell him how to run his bay the "lean" way. The cnut!!! CT Ol'fart's blood pressure boils over and he has four months off sick.
In the interim Fg Off Tristan Thruster has a jolly good idea how to improve his little empire (based on his 2.2 degree from Grimsby Poly, sorry University of the East Riding, and of course his RAF EngO course). Now of course seasoned NCOs have seen off more than one "good idea" from a baby officer, but he knows just how to get round this, (well it keeps being mentioned in the mess), he's gonna stick a flag of Lean on it and sail it under that. Its like buzzword bingo, but in Japanese at the 'event' outbrief. Several NCOs do something they swore they'd never do, and apply for instructor posts.
Meanwhile it is decided that in the interests of being 'lean' it is wasteful to have two groups of people on station who are universally despised, and hence QCIT emerges like a phoenix from the flames of cost cutting, to merge lean and quality teams, fooling absolutely no one. Only now the Quality Nazis are in tears, because just once, for a fleeting moment, they were not the stickiest dogsh!t on the shoe of engineers. Worse is to come as their workload is trebled as they seek new unpopularity in areas never before explored, such as PSF and the newly named Base Support Wing, and for some reason a JPA error causes a number of the team to receive SAC wages for several months.
Of course whilst this is causing much turmoil in RAF circles, the lean initiative is an overwhelming success in the new partnering arrangements with several defence firms whose stated aim is to make a profit out of the public purse. Many senior officers have to allocate valuable time to attending self-congratulatory photograph sessions with the management of these companies, before accompanying them to the mess to be dined in a fashion befitting such important profiteers. Unfortunately the photo and all afternoon drinking sessions dry up with the news that not a single aircraft will ever be delivered on time for its crucial deployment to the gulf, and the managers launch an all out strike to renegotiate the contracts as the lack of bonuses is the cause of concern in many a golf club. Meanwhile the lean team, or QCIT, suffer a change of fortune, and are now banned from all company premises that yesterday used to belong to the RAF, as it is quite clearly their fault.
Fortunately this debacle has been hushed up and a fresh squadron arrives in a foreign land, where their dashing leader sets about making new friends by issuing pieces of card (confusing also known as QCITS) to all other sections, by way of criticising their work, in an attempt to improve the shoddy service offered to the hard working engineers of this det, by the sun worshipping cling-ons in their scant working day. Said Sqn departs and all other Sqns are tarnished by association, even by cling ons who weren't even in theatre at the time.
In the meantime anyone who really knows anything about lean, is either posted after 2yrs if they are of the cravat wearing variety, or overlooked for promotion, and decide to either leave to seek fortune in civvy street, or swiftly ask for a posting back to trade, and never mention to anyone that they ever had anything to do with lean.
And that is the history of lean in the air force, or did I dream it all?
DT_Xtremez_31:
