Project Summary The Challenge: It took UC San Diego 3-5 months to assign 2,500 classes The Discovery: 4 of 15 major tasks took 75% of the total time The Improvements: They eliminated the need for thousands of emails and phone calls The Results: Reduced wait time by 75% Reduced process…
Lessons Learned While Sheltering in Place If nothing else, COVID-19 has given us stories we can use about how rapid change can bring about improvements. For our continuous process improvement team, we all had tough choices to make when we started working remotely. Two days after I started working from…
I reached out to the broader Lean Six Sigma community to find out how they’re putting their collective skills to use during the COVID-19 fallout. I wanted to hear from them for myself, but also to bring that wisdom to our learners. This group is experiencing the pandemic in different…
King County's Wastewater Treatment Division paves the way for process improvement with a two-pronged approach: Changing Culture and Kaizen Improvements. Here's how Sandy and Bill are helping to reduce lead time in their Capital Streamlining efforts. Bill Wilbert has worked for the King County Wastewater Treatment Division for 17 years.…
The Naval Surface Warfare Center recently hosted a Rapid Improvement Event and gathered personnel from various departments that deal with hazardous materials (HAZMAT) in an effort to improve cycle time, safety and overall performance for the future. Led by James Schwartz, NSWC PHD CPI Lean Six Sigma MBB, the group's…
Government has its own set of challenges with quickly applying process improvement and seeing improvement results. This 15 minute video shows how a government section used a Process Walk as an approach to understand the process. The process walk was facilitated by Tracy O'Rourke to create a safe environment promoting…
Check out how the City of SeaTac improved their Right-of -Way Permit Process by completing a Process Walk and Rapid Improvement (Kaizen) Event. What Is a Rapid Improvement Event? A Rapid Improvement Event (also known as a Kaizen Event) involves key process participants focusing on solving a narrowly scoped process…
The City of SeaTac is blazing a trail for all cities in the U.S.A with their Align and Improve initiative. This city-wide initiative is focused on creating better strategic alignment throughout the City of SeaTac and launching process improvement efforts in city processes. With facilitation help from Tracy O'Rourke, the…
A Rapid Improvement Event is also known as a Kaizen Event. In practice a Rapid Improvement Event generally spans from 1 to 5 days and involves key process participants focusing on solving a narrowly scoped process improvement opportunity. The difference between Rapid Improvement Events and typical workshops is threefold: The…
Rapid Improvement Event – 30-day Follow Up List A template that lists action items that require follow up after a Rapid Improvement Event. These items have a target completion of 30 days after event. This document helps the team stay organized around who is doing what and when the…