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GLSS has significantly enhanced government efficiency by applying Lean Six Sigma principles, which focus on eliminating waste, reducing variation, and optimizing processes.
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Kern County Saves Over $19 Million With Lean Six Sigma
In 2015, an oil-market crash lead to a $44 million loss in general fund revenue for Kern County of Southern California. They were faced with the challenge of making up the large structural deficit while maintaining the same level of service to their citizens with a dramatically smaller budget.
Kern County believes in continuous improvement and that culture drives great results. Because of this core belief, the Kern County Board of Supervisors initiated a new program, Launch Kern, to apply Lean Six Sigma principles to all county departments for all of their 7,500 employees.
Four years later, Kern County has trained over 1,000 employees who’ve gone onto complete over 185 projects, resulting in over $19 million and 100,000 hours saved. Now, that’s what we call continuous improvement!
7 Strategies for Making the Most of a Lean Workforce
The new government regulations under the Affordable Care Act have created a need for improved technology. With that, there are Human Resource and staff burdens. For healthcare organizations to cut expenses and cover new technology advancements, Lean Six Sigma methods are being used as support.
A Successful Year of Deploying Lean Six Sigma With Kern County
Zack Scrivner, elected representative on the Kern County Board of Supervisors, reflects on a successful 2017 after deploying a Lean Six Sigma driven program, the LaunchKern Initiative. Open to every county employee, the program aimed to utilize their firsthand knowledge of processes to become better, faster, and stronger. By focusing on the processes (and not the people), Kern County was able to save $24,000 in Behavioral Health & Recovery by changing their fleet policy, $120,000 through redesigning the tax bill by making them easier to understand and decreasing submission errors, and $27,000 by switching to an electronic benefit package. It didn’t end there, with Planning and Natural Resources using Lean Six Sigma to streamline their Oil and Gas permitting process, driving the turnaround time from nine months to seven days. It’s apparent Kern County has figured out a way to save money without cutting employees, and with another great year ahead, they’ll look to stay on the path to success equipped with Lean Six Sigma.
Building the Perfect Fish Tank
Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) and Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) representatives are currently partnered in a collaborative effort to review and improve workloads and processes. Joan Sherwood, DCMA director, shares that the team’s improvement methodology is called Business Process Reengineering- a Lean Six Sigma analysis approach.
Change Required to Fight Waste and Duplication
Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, is all in when it comes to fighting local government waste. Some of Cuomo’s greatest and most repeated phrases are, “Most communities,” and “Great waste and duplication.” Cuomo believes “every taxing entity should be required by the state to conduct efficiency studies every year.” This means using Lean Six Sigma and alike methods.
City of El Paso Utilizes Lean Six Sigma Program
The City of El Paso uses Lean Six Sigma to save money, reduce employee work hours, and streamline operations. This year, so far, Lean Six Sigma Training has saved the City of El Paso $704,468! In fiscal year 2016, the first full year under the city’s process improvements, the city is expected to save another $456,000.
Making Things Better – Lean Streets: Improving Road Maintenance in Washington State
Once upon a time, Washington State cut $50,000 checks to 165 small cities under 5,000 population to fund street resurfacing. This was not economical nor made sense. The Washington State Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) then conducted a PDCA study of how best to provide street preservation support. After gathering the data and establishing targets, “the $50,000 checks process was replaced by a pavement-management approach that resulted in funding the right street, with the right treatment, at the right time.”
City of Oshawa Adds Lean Six Sigma to Reduce 2017 Costs
When budget discussions for 2017 began at Oshawa City Hall, Councillor Rick Dubeau points to Lean Six Sigma to improve services and costs for the local governments. He believes that the Lean approach can offer local governments a different way of thinking, with an effective, structured methodology for creating sustainable change both culturally and operationally.
Colorado Department of Transportation
“We encourage everyone in the department, and especially front line staff, to improve our day-to-day operations, which ultimately enhances safety and improves the lives of the users of our system,” explains Colorado Department of Transportation Executive Director Michael Lewis.
CDOT recently won a Harvard Award, which is a testament to their fervent approach to inspiring employees to “fix what bugs them”. Since the inception of the Lean Everyday Ideas program (LEI), CDOT has captured 569 ideas from employees within the organization, of which 340 have been implemented as solutions and 277 have been vetted to become organization-wide best practices.
From eliminating wasted labor when collecting roadkill, to improved safety signage at facilities, LEI has created a formalized, centralized system to create, foster and publicize new ideas.
“The Lean Everyday Ideas program provides a crucial platform for CDOT’s more than 3,300 employees to engage in continuous improvement,” said Office of Process Improvement Innovation and Improvement Lead Geneva Hooten.
When an organization is this good at process improvement, it comes as no surprise when rewarded with such a prestigious award.
Commissioners Discuss Initiatives Behind the Scenes at ‘State of the County’ Event
For the state of Delaware, 2016 has been full of learning and growing! The $17,000 grant from the state is being put towards Lean Six Sigma programs in an effort “to get lower trash rates for residents” and “set economic development priorities for the county” over the next 10 years! There’s a way to reduce waste (literal trash!) and the chamber, directors, and commissioner are all on board.
Cutting Red Tape: It’s Time to Sweat the Small Stuff
The federal workforce is currently reduced as budget reductions take place. According to Steve Goodrich, federal agencies have become highly inefficient over time. Hiring decisions, procurement actions, and budget approvals are not executed as effectively or efficiently as they should. To streamline government practices, methods such as Lean Six Sigma need to be applied to daily agency operations instead of being looked over.
Dallas CPE: Planning, Management, and Continuous Improvement Enhance Service Delivery
The federal workforce is currently reduced as budget reductions take place. According to Steve Goodrich, federal agencies have become highly inefficient over time. Hiring decisions, procurement actions, and budget approvals are not executed as effectively or efficiently as they should. To streamline government practices, methods such as Lean Six Sigma need to be applied to daily agency operations instead of being looked over.
Decreasing Kern County’s Deficit of $40m to $12m in Two Years
In the launch of a talk-show style informational show by Kern County Administrative office leaders, Megan Person, Director of Countywide Communications looks create dialogue around the basics of the county’s financial situation. With topics ranging from budget status, pension costs and to the county’s efforts with Lean Six Sigma, addressing the $40 million dollar deficit created several years ago stood to take precedence within the conversation.
Since its journey into process improvement, the county’s general fund has been able to shrink it’s deficit to just $12 million over the past two years. By adopting a culture of innovation and training managers and line employees in Lean Six Sigma, Brown, the Chief Human Resources Officer for Kern County has shed four positions through attrition without an impact on the service level the public experiences.
With a turned focus on a growing Fire Department Deficit of over $12 million, it’s now more important than ever that the county and the Kern County Fire Fighters union negotiate changes to help address the financial problems they face together. They’ll continue to harness Lean Six Sigma to support their efforts.
Delaware County OK’s Lean Six Sigma Training
Earlier this month, Delaware County commissioners announced that they are moving forward with Lean Six Sigma training. The overall goal for the state’s team from the training is to “gain a better understanding of the processes you have in place and find the efficiencies.”
Gilbert Leveraging Lean to Face Fiscal Challenges
Gilbert, Arizona is the best, safest, and happiest city in the US according to Money Magazine, Tech Co, and Law Street Media. With the city’s ongoing growth, they’ve managed to keep tax increases low and eliminate waste in their leadership with Lean Six Sigma tools.
How Nebraska Is Attacking Waste and Improving Performance With Lean Six Sigma
Having already completed 52 project improvement projects so far this year, Governor Ricketts of Nebraska highlights his administration’s record for improving processes and focusing on delivering better customer service for the people of Nebraska. By reducing waste and utilizing automation to decrease cycle time for numerous departments’ processes, Nebraska continues to pave the way as a leader in process improvement. For example, the staff was able to reduce application processing time by 87% and increase application output by 150% in just one month. Through the entire effort, all 14,000 or so state employees have received training on process improvement, including the 8 Wastes!
Interview: Mayor Greg Fischer on What Louisville Does Right
Mayor Greg Fischer of Louisville, Kentucky shares his thoughts on what makes Louisville a great city. In recent years, the city has become a source of inspiration and has been squeezing its way up next to cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. Fischer also mentions recent initiatives like LouieStat which uses Lean Six Sigma to improve traditional government statistic programs. The city is also currently looking to tackle air quality and green initiatives.
Kern County Catapults Out of Deficit Using Lean Six Sigma
Kern County, in Bakersfield, California, is embarking on its new Lean Six Sigma journey to dig out of the fiscal hole drilled into its tax revenues by the decrease in gas and oil properties. Funded and hired by Kern County’s Behavioral Health Department, the top managers have been introduced to the process improvement system, led by Master Black Belt Scott Thor, in an effort to identify waste, eliminate it and deliver better service for less money. Using ping pong balls, a catapult, and a target, Thor introduces Lean Six Sigma by way of a fun, time-paced, team activity to help “catapult” their process improvement efforts and understanding.
Lean Government Six Sigma? Why Do Politicians Ignore It?
In this 2012 Forbes opinion piece, the author nods to Lean Six Sigma as something top lawmakers should be wise to note and lead on. During this same year, presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, made Lean Six Sigma one of his core campaign platforms. The platform and pitch would serve as a way to overturn the 2007 and 2008 financial turmoil in the United States. The Department of Defence and their Transportation Command both implemented Lean Six Sigma then, so why are politicians ignoring it and the opportunity to save?
Lean Inspired Facility Helps Idaho State Police Save Lives Faster
At the Idaho State Police Headquarters (ISP), a red ribbon was cut after one year of construction to usher in the Lean-inspired $6M facility, which, for the first time ever, houses the forensics, administrative, investigative, and patrol divisions all in the same building. By utilizing Lean Six Sigma principles in the design of the new facility, ISP has been able to greatly reduce the number of steps involved in processing evidence, which allows them to solve crimes faster, and save more lives. Colonel Ked Wills exclaims, “Today, we are thankful for those who are here that see that and are able to help us as we realize these goals.” Equipped with better technology, and partnered with the ability to process more efficiently, the Idaho State Police leads the way with Lean Six Sigma and sets a new precedent for law enforcement around the globe.
“Leaning Forward” in King County
In 2009, King County, Washington needed to make things better for citizens and decided that Lean was the way to do it. Since then, the Lean implementation plan has grown tremendously! Lean has given the county the capacity to produce public value with constrained resources. King County’s implementation plan is threefold: strategy deployment, transformation improvement of operations, and daily management.
Making Government Services Leaner in the Buckeye State
Ohio Department of Administrative Services started reducing costs and speeding up processes alongside improved customer satisfaction when LeanOhio launched in early 2011. Since the launch of LeanOhio, there have been a reduction of burdens on taxpayers and 80 major improvement efforts which have resulted in saving taxpayers $156 million.
McDonald Says ‘Biggest Reorganization Of VA’ to Rebuild Trust Is Underway
Bob McDonald, secretary of U.S. Veterans Affairs (VA), is set to embark on the biggest reorganization of VA in its history through the new “Road to Veterans Day Action Review.” McDonald is focused on rebuilding trust, improving service delivery, and setting the course for long-term excellence and reform. In addition, VA is trying to improve its processes and change its culture by applying the concepts of Lean Six Sigma.
Modern Maintenance Manager: Cutting Waste in the Shop
A small decision at the King’s County Riyerson Base bus maintenance shop in Seattle, Washington has eliminated 40 eight-hour working days per year from the whole shop. Walking from Seattle to Death Valley, California is no longer an annual event in this Lean shop. The shop workers, Lean is the culture and concepts are part of the daily management.
Pittsfield Council Asks Mayor for Independent Review of Budgets
The City Council of Pittsfield, Massachusetts has requested their mayor to review the city’s budget for possible reductions and to bring Lean Six Sigma to the council. Councilors voiced looking for the “best bang for our buck” and a “thought-out task force” to “streamline systems, reduce waste, eliminate duplication, and review purchasing while improving customer service.”
Raritan Township Republican Candidates Want Referendums on Borrowing
Republican candidates for Township Committee, Louis Reiner and Richard Chen, want to see bonding proposals submitted to the voters in a referendum. Chen says he favors referendums “for major expenditures.” This is Chen’s first time running for public office and with his request to see bonding proposals, Chen says he would apply Lean Six Sigma techniques. The techniques that he would apply would save money while continuously improving the quality of the organization’s products and services. Chen previously served with the Army, during that time he successfully streamlined budgets and saved the Army millions of dollars.
Results Washington Saves 1 Million Hours in Lobby Wait Times With Lean Six Sigma
In an effort to drive performance management and process improvement, Results Washington looks to continue its path toward improving the life of Washingtonians. Launched in 2013, Governor Jay Inslee established five top priority goals and challenged state government leaders to track their progress. In collaboration with several different departmental lines, Results Washington has been able to: save one million hours in lobby wait ties, establish a fifteen percent decrease in speed-related deaths, and save $6.2M in overpayments. The state of Washington continues to pave the way for other local and state governments.
Seeking Efficiency: Tremendous Resistance in Government
Lean Six Sigma has been credited with saving companies hundreds of billions of dollars over the past several decades. However, the government has never really taken to Lean Six Sigma and held on to the process improvement methods. Cities around the country can not afford their current uprising costs and now Lean is making its way back around to the most skeptical minds in government.
Spokane County Utility Billing Team Lean Success Story
The Spokane County Utilities Billing team assists more than 45,000 customers with their solid waste and sewer billing accounts. In an effort to better serve their customers, the team uses Lean strategies to maintain consistent and open communication. Daily huddle meetings allow everyone to participate with the projects going on using their own strengths and weaknesses. Lean has allowed everyone to play a role in daily operations with effective and positive customer responses.
Streamlining Processes and Eliminating Waste with the State of Nebraska
Pete Ricketts, Governor of the State of Nebraska, has invested an immense amount of time and effort to help state government improve and progress. “We set goals to deliver better results for our customers. We measure improvement and progress. And we hold our team accountable for those results,” says Pete. By training almost 13,000 members of their team in Lean Six Sigma methodology, they were able to achieve amazing process improvement results. Their Developmental Disabilities Division was able to cut down their meeting preparation time from 65 hours to 10 hours, thanks to their process improvement team’s streamlining efforts. In addition, the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) has incorporated a new system that allows residents to renew their conceal carry permits online. By having the application process online, the agency saves an estimated 4,700 hours of processing time a year. Pete closes by saying, “We have successfully worked to change the mindset of state government from doing things the way they have been done for years to making government work for the people of Nebraska.”
Streamlining the Form Submittal Process With the City of Fort Worth
In an effort to reduce waste and accelerate response times for form submittals, the city of Fort Worth, Texas will be deploying a Lean Six Sigma effort with “Process Director” from BP Logix.
Ranging departments from HR, finance, law enforcement, fire, and water are all partnering with IT in what is called Phase I of the implementation. By focusing on a digital transformation that aims to automate 13 major processes (including nearly 400 highly-used forms), Kevin Gunn, CTO, has his sights set high.
“We are evaluating our business processes to reduce errors, improve cycle times, reduce wait time and facilitate adoption,” Gunn shares. Fort Worth has already seen improvements in overhead and shares that entire processes are significantly faster.
Tyler Police Substation in Faulkner Park Now Open
A new police substation opened in Tyler, Texas earlier this month. The police station is an addition to a rapidly growing city where safety is a priority. Prior to the station’s opening, a Lean Six Sigma report determined the station would save the department about $219,000 a year due to savings in manpower, maintenance and fuel!
Ventura County Attributes $4 Million of Its Savings to Lean Six Sigma
Using strong management efforts and thoughtful, conservative fiscal projections, Ventura County was able to save $43 million in the past year. “Approximately $15 million of the savings came from savings in expenditures with almost $4 million resulting from the County’s commitment to lean six sigma process improvement.” These savings have been placed into reserves, which will only be used for significant facility and program investments like homeless shelter development and animal service facilities. “The lean six sigma savings are a demonstration of the fiscal responsibility that is an organizational imperative at all levels of the County,” said County Executive Officer Mike Powers.
Ventura County Public Works Agency Announces $7 Million in Cost Avoidance From Lean Six Sigma Program
Over the past 6 years, the Ventura County Public Works Agency (VCPWA) has saved nearly $7 million in cost avoidance with Lean Six Sigma efficiency programs. Over 175 events have been conducted over the past 6 years in the agency and over 350 employees have been trained in Lean Six Sigma to continue to transform into a high-performing organization.
Village Earns Prestigious Award for Performance
In Pinehurst, North Carolina, the mayor has been awarded the Milestone 3 Award for its overall state performance. The award is difficult to achieve and “measured very carefully.” The council said, “It’s just about making continuous improvement” and each year, they’re getting better.
Canada | Free Parking in Downtown Lindsay Will Help Determine Future Needs
City staff of Lindsay, Ontario is giving free parking in downtown to survey and determine parking needs June 16 to July 13, 2014. Parking will be free for two hours at all metered parking and is aimed to consolidate and improve the management of the City’s public parking lots. This is a process improvement project part of a Lean Six Sigma performance management initiative.
Canada | Kingston Paramedics Support PTSD Bill
In Kingston, Toronto, a bill by Cheri DiNovo proposes an amendment to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act to acknowledge post-traumatic stress disorder among emergency response workers. If the bill passes, it means that emergency responders who become diagnosed with PTSD would be covered under the act, assuming the injury is workplace-related. Frontenac County has programs in place to help paramedics cope with the stress of their job. Lean Six Sigma is just one of many programs that help responders get a handle on the root causes of workplace illnesses.
Canada | Report Shows Ontario County Workforce Development Efforts ‘Paying Off’
In Ontario, Canada, signs of positive economic development are new construction and business collaborations. Mike Manikowski, the county’s economic developer said, “We’re putting money from economic development into workforce development, and it’s really paying off.” The economic development office has also requested funding for Lean Six Sigma training.
India | Uncertainty Begets Opportunity
In the world today, companies face many uncertainties. Between changing environments, poorly understood relationships, and other uncertain variables, it is essential that companies have efficient processes and designs. This year, India had the highest voter turnout in the history of Indian general elections. With this turnout, business leaders expect a boom in business! However, there is still uncertainty. With uncertainty comes structured cause-and-effect experiments, random field trials, and trial-and-error experiments.
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