Written by Starting in 2012, the DOT has been investing in Lean training and events to improve their operations.
As of 2016, they have over 700 staff trained in Lean Principles, and 7 staff trained in Advanced Lean Principles. They have conducted 22 full week kaizen events, and helped lead 5 statewide Lean events.
Helped to breakdown silos across departments and agencies, in order to build stronger partnerships and change the culture towards improvement. Due to their expertise, they’ve also been able to help facilitate other events outside DOT.
One project was related to the State Traffic Generator Permitting process, used to approve building of a new roadway or parking lot, often by major companies. It used to take 6-9 months previously to get the permit reviewed and approved. Through the use of Value Stream Mapping (VSM), 5S and benchmarking of best practices from other agency permitting processes, they were able to remove the bottleneck of the state commission, and empower the agency doing the work to make the approval. The new process now takes only 30-60 days to get approval.
You can watch the 8-minute video called 2016 Lean Showcase – Department of Transportation” at https://www.gembaacademy.com/guests/state-of-connecticut