Written by As part of the county’s strategic plan, Miami-Dade County in Southeast Florida launched a Six Sigma Green Belt DMAIC project to reduce the # of days to provide direct relief assistance payments to domestic violence victims.
This project supports the County’s 2020 strategic plan under the following objectives:
- HS1: Basic needs of vulnerable Miami Dade County residents are met
- HS1 4: Improve access to abuse prevention, intervention and support services
- HS2: Self sufficient and healthy populations
- HS2 1: Provide the necessary support services for vulnerable residents and special populations
- GG1: Accessible, fair and responsible government
- GG1 1: Provide easy access to information and services
The project team gathered and trended the current performance of the process, and found an average of 16 business days from request until check received. They mapped the current process to describe and understand what was happening today.
They collected time and quality data from recent transactions and noticed that most delays were requests for rental assistance happening within the Assistant Director approval step, so they focused on those requests and process steps for the project. They next worked through the root causes of the problem using a fishbone diagram to identify key actions to implement:
- Retrained staff on use of DocuSign program
- Established best practices and expected turnaround times
- Created electronic alerts for relief requests over 24 hours
- Implemented a checklist to reduce number of approvers
At the end of the project, they were able to issue relocation checks in 1-3 business day (2 days average), down from a historic average of 16 days. They were able to achieve cost of poor quality (COPQ) reductions of $20,623 annually with only a $300 investment cost (not including project labor).
Download the report presentation at https://wwwx.miamidade.gov/performance/library/projects/cahsd-fbc-green-belt-project.pdf