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10/06/2011 04:10 PM
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A friend of me who works as a leadership consult asked me if I could help her´s client to "introduce" Lean. I am well familiar with the Lean Philosophy in the production environment, but this project is about a government agency. It is a group of local employment services (6 offices) with a total of approximately 120 employees. An office consisting of 3 to 20 people.
Organizationally, there are two persons responsible for these six offices and each office has a local manager. One of these two people is a social worker and cares very much about the personnel working at different office. The second person is a business developer and has some knowledge and experience of Lean. My purpose to "be lean" is that they will create operation that deliver better quality to its customers (job applicants), increase efficiency of operations (taxpayers), and create environment in which "people grow." What they want help with is that I will present a "model" and implementation plan for transforming their existing approach and culture to Lean.
Are there any of you who have done similar type of commission on similar type of business, or anyone who has tips / suggestions of "implementation plan" that you would like to share with you and that I may find useful. I obviously have my own thoughts, but I think there are a lot of experts on this forum, which can more about Lean in the service sector and have more experience than me.
I am interested in concrete suggestions / advice and not knowledge of Lean philosophy, as I said I well familiar Lean in general ... but right now I have a problem to do a more detailed implementation plan. In addition, I worked mostly in the industrial sector and not so much in the service sector.
Best regards
RD
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10/07/2011 03:31 PM
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I would start by re-framing your questions. What problem are you trying to solve?
You talk about "transforming their existing approach and culture to Lean."
Where are they now? What is their existing approach and culture? How do people interact with the process, and with one another?
When you say "lean culture" what are you describing? How, exactly, would people interact with the process, and with one another, in a "lean culture?"
If you can manage to articulate those two states in terms of what an observer would actually see, what someone participating in that "culture" would actually experience - and not in abstract terms, then you have a shot and developing your next step (immediate target), and what problem(s) need to be cleared to get there.
In short, since you are well familiar with lean in general, apply the problem solving tools you know well to this situation.
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10/17/2011 09:23 AM
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Hello, I'm the new Continuous Improvement Manager for the City of Chula Vista. We are a mid-sized City (247K Population) with a little over 800 employees. We are just beginning our Leam implementation. We've been fortunate to be partnered with a aerospace firm in our City (Goodrich Aerostructures) who have been doing Lean for over 15 years. They have provided training (free of charge) to just about all of our management staff (~70 managers, with another 50 going through a one week intensive training in Feb 2012).
I've attached our current implementation schema in terms of the issues we need to implement and focus on. My experience, and what I've read throughout the Lean universe, is that you need to start at the top, and get a full committment from the agency leadership (both elected and appointed) before it will take hold throughout the organization. We actually sent one of our Council Members through the Lean training at Goodrich.
We've essentially dived straight in and starting doing Kaizen events to show the organization how Lean works, and that it can apply just as effectively in government as it does in manufacturing....I explain it to people that the products we produce are service and information, and you can apply Lean techniques to these "products". We've done five events and have had success with each. We're not perfect, but that's what continuous improvement is about.
We've assembled a team of CI Champions, made up of managers for each department who will be the liaisons between my office and the employees. They were selected based upon their enthusiasm for Lean. That's important. Your message carriers need to be believers.
Right now we've started our focus on 5S and standard work, as I believe these are two critical building blocks for continuous improvement. For 5S, we've developed a quick training module that we're taking out to each department and actually have requested that each department carve out dedicated time so the employees start 5S'ing their work areas. Our approach is to give them the time to "get over the hump" with the expectation that they will eventually work 5S into their routine schedule. We are also starting work on developing visual controls for each of the departments based upon their performance metrics.
Now, I'm no expert! Since we don't have funds to hire consultants to guide us through this, it is a difficult project to implement. But what we have going for us is a workforce that has been significantly reduced due to the budget crisis we're in, and the employees are hungry for something to help them with an ever increasing workload, and dwindling staff. The other important message that we're communicating is this is not a way for us to reduce staff. But rather a way for us to eliminate waste, and reinstate programs that got cut over the last few years. I also believe that the majority of employees are sensitive to the publics perception of government, and that they want to show them that we take their concerns seriously and can spend their tax dollars wisely.
Since we're just in the formative stages of implementation, I too will be watching this thread in hopes that some good information will be provided by those who have done Lean implementation in a govt organization.
Good luck, and feel free to email me at echew@chulavistaca.gov if you have questions...if I can answer, I'll be glad to help!
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10/18/2011 04:01 PM
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Hi Edward
I have implemented Lean in a Government organisation in the UK.
I have not yet had time to read your implementation plan (but I will) and my initial advice is:
1. Get staff on board with your plan - no matter how good your plan is, it will not work if the staff are not on board.
2. Do not call it "Lean". Where and when you can, refer to it as Continuous Improvement. In my experience staff members have used the Lean word in a negative context, such as: "They are going to Lean the staff".
Good luck
Armand
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10/22/2011 04:23 PM
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Hey Armand,
Thanks for the info...we're actually working on a branding of our program. I agree that LEAN can have negative connotations.
We're working hard at getting our staff on board. One of the things that we have going is we've partnered with Goodrich Aerostructures (aerospace manufacturer) which is right down the street from our City Hall, and they've been providing the training in CI for our management staff. They basically saved their company from bankruptcy by implementing CI. So there's a REAL story right down the street from our City Hall. We saw the real effects of CI. So, surprisingly enough, 99% of our managers see real value in CI and are enthusiastic about implementation.
It's going to be a fun ride!
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10/24/2011 04:24 PM
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Hi Edward
Sounds like you have got off to a great start already!
If the managers are on board, that is a big portion of the battle won.
I wish you all the best with your CI program.
Armand
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02/21/2012 03:44 PM
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I am currently working as an internal consultant in Local Government. I have found there is quite a gap in how Govt departments see their customers compared to how private sector does - particularly with longer serving employees.
Keep pushing the message re: better quality outputs, however make sure everyone not only understands who the customer is, but also believes it.
I also agree with Mark, one of the first steps in any program or activity is to clearly define the problem. If this hasn't been done then go back and do it. This problem definition statement will not only help you to measure the outcomes but will also help to keep the project on track by revisiting the problem again and again to ensure the real problem is being fixed.
Good luck with your journey.
Jason.
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02/21/2012 04:40 PM
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It seems to me that to get to the heart of any lean project you have to define the value stream. This should help identify the areas ripe for Kaizen. If there are any performance metrics for this group look to match the value stream to the metrics to prioritize your action work outs.
Don
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02/23/2012 01:35 PM
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That is correct Don. There are many benefits from VSM.
A throrough understanding of the value stream
Clear knowledge of the interactions with other departments
Identification of low hanging fruit - easy wins
Identification of projects from non value adding and incidental work
Understanding of true bottle necks
The list is long, however these are some of the main ones.
Jason.
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02/24/2012 01:33 PM
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You would do well to get a copy of the book "We Don't Make Widgits" by Ken Miller. I consider it the "rosetta stone" of applying lean principles to government systems.
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02/24/2012 01:33 PM
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Hello,
I've been one of many implementing LEAN in a state Human Services agency for the past 3 years. Interest in continuous improvement and LEAN appears continuing to grow. Take a look at the web site http://www.leangovcenter.com/govweb.htm as it includes some of the known efforts.
There are many great articles on the internet regarding how to introduce and implement LEAN. Check out Michael George's book "Lean Six Sigma for Service."
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04/19/2012 01:02 PM
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Hi Edward,
How is it going with your CI effort?
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04/24/2012 11:51 AM
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Dear Micheal,
your links are very very very relevant and interesting.
yours
veronique.ansseau@eurocontrool.int
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