Operational Excellence in Government Success Story – Results Washington

This case study describes how the state of Washington implemented two key operational efficiency strategies for government — performance management and employee-driven process improvement. The effort, called Results Washington, sets priorities and then focuses on delivery to achieve results that make a difference in the lives of Washingtonians. Results Washington was launched in 2013 by Governor Jay Inslee. He established five top-priority statewide goals and challenged state government leaders to track their progress against these goals and to apply Lean thinking and tools to improve their processes.

This approach has proven successful- a study showed that $4.5 in value to taxpayers is returned for every $1 invested in the Lean process improvement program. A total of $33 million in savings and avoided costs have been achieved, as well as countless hours saved via streamlined processes, resulting in improved customer satisfaction.

Selected individual project results include:

  • One million hours of time saved waiting in Department of Licensing lobbies using process improvements and partnering with private driver-training schools
  • 15% decrease in speed-related deaths
  • 20% faster processing of DNA tests at the Crime Lab, reducing the backlog by 10 percent and cutting staff overtime 56%
  • $6.2 million in recovered overpayments from Department of Labor and Industries, a 28% increase in one year
  • $2.3 million in savings a year on long-distance phone calls

Read more: https://www.innovations.harvard.edu/opex/research/case-study-performance-management-and-lean-process-improvement-results-washington