A kaizen event with the Iowa Finance Authority (IFA) worked to improve the cash receipt process to correctly allocate and fully balance all the transaction invoices and cash receipts. The goal was to reduce the number of hand-offs by 25% and the number of unresolved open items by 0%. The event resulted a 100% zero […]
A kaizen event was conducted to address the re-entry and release of the planning process, when the Work Release or Parole Agreement is signed by the offender in the community. The goal was to increase the consistency rate between the Department of Corrections (DOC) and Iowa Board of Parole (IBOP) release decision by 90% or […]
At the Minnesota Historical Society, a kaizen event was conducted to reduce the time to hire a new employee. The team identified that the current state took 75 days to hire an employee (job posting to employee signed offer), and were able to reduce it to 40 days. They also reduced the task time from […]
Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO, aim to optimize the use of solar energy, and JMP® statistical discovery software from SAS helps them hit the mark. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) scientists use the scripting and data mining capabilities of JMP® to gauge the performance of solar energy […]
The City of Irving, located between Dallas and Fort Worth, is one of five cities in the state and 89 in the nation with a AAA rating from both Standard and Poor’s (S&P) and Moody’s. And 95 percent of Irving employees say the city government is a good place to work compared to a federal […]
No process is ever going to be perfect, but there is value in continuously improving whatever can be made better. For the past few years, the Motor Vehicle Division has been looking at its processes using tools related to Lean Six Sigma to eliminate waste and improve quality. Nearly two years ago, the Office of […]
Prompted by a financial crisis, the City of Chula Vista wanted to find ways to be more efficient and effective and avoid more layoffs. City employees attended Goodrich Aerostructures’ Continuous Improvement Foundation training to learn about Lean processes. As a result, the City of Chula Vista conducted several kaizen events in most of their departments such as: […]
In 2007, the United States Military needed the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP) produced in larger numbers to meet the goals set by Department of Defense (DoD) Secretary Robert Gates. The MRAP represented the opportunity to save the lives of soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan facing the threat of Improvised Explosive Devices […]
Rep. Raul Torres believes that Texas can save 20-25 billion dollars from its biennial budget if every department will utilize Lean/Six Sigma methods and he points to the example of the City of Irving, Texas, which Rep. Torres told me cut their budget from $188 million to $168 million while at the same time improving […]
As the 2012 election year approaches, many topics are sure to surface, but none so much as the U.S. budget, its deficit and how to stop unnecessary spending. This topic is on the minds of not only the presidential candidates, but also every American citizen. Democrats and Republicans alike agree that something needs to be […]