Case Study: Douglas County Streamlines Commercial Building Permit Process

Unlike Whatcom County, Douglas County, Washington can issue a new housing permit in less than one week. The commercial permitting process was the issue and used to take 6-7 weeks. “When money is at stake, every day is critical,” according to Douglas County Director of Land Services. To improve the processes in place, the process improvement team developed a plan to cut permit review time from 36 days to 20 days. Douglas County focused on commercial permits because it wanted to review a process other counties had not yet done using Lean.