Article 156. Getting the most out of Lean as used in Government
Lean manufacturing or lean production, which is often known simply as “Lean”, is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, “value” is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Basically, Lean is centered around creating more value with less work. Lean manufacturing is a generic process management philosophy developed mostly by Toyota.
Lean manufacturing is a variation on the theme of efficiency based on optimizing flow; it is an instance of the recurring theme toward increasing efficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical methods to decide what matters, rather than uncritically accepting pre-existing ideas.
For many, Lean is the set of “tools” that assist in the identification and steady elimination of waste. As waste is eliminated quality improves while manufacturing production time and cost are reduced. Examples of such “tools” are Value Stream Mapping, Five S (work place cleanliness), Kanban, (pull systems), and poka-yoke (error-proofing). The Value Stream Mapping tool has the greatest potential for applications in government for studying process flows while the other tools also have usefulness in organizing the work place environment.
Toyota uses Value Stream Mapping primarily to study the flow of automotive parts through the various manufacturing processes in its factories this is called in-process inventory. All automotive parts become more and more valuable as labor is expended on the parts going through the processes. The parts in this case in-process inventory just sitting around waiting between processes represents a loss in investment and warrants a Lean team study. The object is to identify all delays and to eliminate them if possible thus shorting the flow time and reducing inventory costs.
The Value Stream Mapping technique is used in government to analyze the flow of documents and or materials currently required to bring a product or service to a consumer.
Implementation of Value Stream Mapping
1. Identify the target product, product family, or service that is in need of reform.
2. Draw a current state value stream map, which shows the current steps, delays, and information flows required to deliver the target product or service. This may be a production flow (raw materials to consumer) or a design flow (concept to launch). There are ’standard’ symbols for representing supply chain entities. This is time dependent mapping showing the time for all processes and losses due to delays.
3. Assess the current state value stream map in terms of creating flow by eliminating waste.
4. Draw a future state value stream map.
5. Implement the future map.
Where is it used?
Value stream mapping is commonly used in Lean environments to identify opportunities for improvement in lead time. Although value stream mapping is often associated with manufacturing, it is also used in logistics, supply chain, service related industries, healthcare, software development, and product development.
Examples of how Lean is applied to government?
Lean Legacy in Iowa By Jonathan Walters Governing Magazine August 2009
The aim of the Lean effort was for a leaner, more responsive government. In 2005 the Department of Natural Resources first introduced Lean “Hot Teams” which reduced turnaround time for air-quality permits from 62 days to six days, and for wastewater discharge permits from 28 months to four-and-a-half months (without reducing environmental protection, the DNR claims); the Department of Human Services increased health care coverage for children by 12 percent; the Department of Corrections reduced probation-failure rates by nearly 20 percent; and across all charter agencies, the turnaround time for key personnel actions was reduced from months to mere days.
There continued to be a strong undercurrent of parallel reform embodied by the broader “lean” concept. Governor Vilsack, who was well aware of the lean initiatives and hot-team tactics started at DNR, requested in 2005 that every executive-branch agency in Iowa officially commit to “lean.” That was a rallying cry, says Teresa McMahon, that the Department of Management heartily embraced, one that was already being actively pursued in partnership with the Iowa Business Council.
The Promise of Going ‘Lean’ By Ken Miller | May 21, 2009
So what makes Lean so promising in government? Three things.
1. Lean actually focuses on operations. The whole point of Lean is to rethink the way we produce what we produce, to increase our capacity to provide value to those we serve. Lean recognizes that inefficiency resides in our systems and our operations — the way we have designed our work. Lean is not another planning model, measurement method or accountability system. Lean is not a pithy slogan or something you tell employees to do. Lean actually focuses on the work of the agency.
2. Lean has a measurable impact on time, capacity and customer
satisfaction. That is, it actually works. Lean projects produce amazing results, and they’re often completed in as few as five days. The typical results of the teams I have worked with include 80 percent faster processes, 50 percents drops in customer wait-times, doubling capacity, reducing phone calls and, of course, savings costs. Change agents in Iowa, Maine and Georgia are experiencing similarly impressive returns.
How is this possible? On the TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” the team constructs a house in only seven days, as opposed to the nine to 12 months it typically takes to build a new home. How does the team do it? By focusing on all time-wasters and eliminating them. The team doesn’t cut corners — the family still gets a roof. But the “Makeover” crew finds a way to work on the corners at the same time they are installing the plumbing.
That show is a perfect illustration of the opportunities in any process, government included. For almost any process, the actual labor accounts for less than 5 percent of the total time a process takes. So in a nine-month permitting process, there may be about two weeks of actual hard labor. A hiring process may involve three days of work stretched out over three to four months. Where does all that time go? Batching, bottlenecks, backlog, checking, re-checking and CYA. A Lean approach works to eradicate the lost time by eliminating these barriers. When the system runs faster, we can get more done with the same resources.
3. Lean involves employees. Specifically, the employees who work within the system being improved. We’ve tried employee involvement before, with suggestion programs, quality teams and so forth. While the intent of those programs was good, the focus was too small. Employees may be able to suggest ways to improve their own performance, or the piece of the process they’re involved in. But systems cut across silos. Most employees can only see a part of the whole system. Therefore, what might help them personally be more productive could actually hinder the larger system. Lean projects, on the other hand, involve all the key players in a system (including the customers) to analyze the whole thing.
Lawrence Rosier’s comments on using Lean in Government.
Lean appears to be the most exciting thing to stir government in years and it well deserves the accolades. I support the imbedding of the lean process in every state government. Having said that, there are some issues I have identified, especially with the Lean reformers not going far enough.
Notice in Iowa the hot teams reduced turnaround time for air-quality permits from 62 days to six days, and for wastewater discharge permits from 28 months to four-and-a-half months. This is great news for customers and for the bureaucracy. Bureaucracies seek out anything that makes them look good to the public because it increases the possibility that their budgets will be increased.
Now let’s take a close look at how this was done. The question is? Were state employees just sitting around waiting for something to fall into their In-Baskets and the lean team organized them to jump in and get the job done. Could the new Lean document processing method be an antidote to the old In-Basket bureaucratic management method where “if your In-Basket is empty you don’t have anything to do” So employees let their In-Baskets build up a good sized backlog. After all it doesn’t cost the government anything only the customer has to wait months.
Clearly something is amiss because if the employees doing the processing of these documents could increase the turn around time by as much indicated in Iowa then there may be too many employees or there is an in balance in staffing. The staffing level could be set for processing the largest volume of documents rather than the average number of documents. I suspect the bureaucracy doesn’t even have clue as to what the staffing level should be. The Lean team ended their study by reducing document turnaround times. But this where the Lean team needs to continue their study to determine not only the best processes but also how to balance the staffing base to achieve the savings not only in the reduction of process time but also in employee labor.
The determination of the proper staffing can be easily done because the Lean team knows the time to do the processes and it now must determine the number of times that the process is done over the budgeted time. If the work load proves to vary significantly such as seasonally the Lean team must find the best way to balance this work load. The best way to do this is to find another process to work on in the off times when there is little to do in short balance the work load by combining the activities found in several agencies.
But this is my recommendation for a major Lean study for streamlining agencies, boards and commissions. The Lean study team should include representatives from the agencies, boards and commissions. The best way to do this is by creating a Centralized State 311 telephone portal called Customer Relations Management CRM. See my article 101.
The bureaucratic fiefdoms of hundreds of agencies, boards and commissions need to be reorganized into consolidated Steering Management teams supervising Functional Management teams who do the processes identified by the high level Lean study team. Each Function management team should be tasked with continuing to find the best way to do their jobs.
See the following articles for more information.
Article 101. The Hampton Virginia Innovation Story
Article 102. Government Reform of California Agencies and Commissions
Article 151. The Promise of Going ‘Lean’
Article 152. The Process of Replacing Bureaucratic Management With Lean Teams
Article 154. Streamlining Iowa Boards and Commissions Using Lean and More
