Power in a Flywheel

An example of implementing sets of complementary changes over time and developing an enterprise can be found in the case of the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center. A group of MIT researchers studied enterprise change at Warner Robins because it was one of the first large air force centers to adopt lean methods in maintenance operations. The results it achieved were note worthy; overall activity levels were extensive and ongoing; it maintained these efforts through successive leadership transitions; and its leaders influenced the adoption of an improvement program across the US Air Force as a whole. What Warner Robins accomplished and how it struggled through those changes illustrates the importance of complementary changes, or what we call installing innovation sets. We examined change efforts in the maintenance program for C-5 and C-130 aircraft, in contracting, and in how change spread across the entire Air Logistics Center.