The Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) handles major transportation hubs and infrastructure within the state, including Logan Airport in Boston, waterfront property, cruise ship terminals and shipping ports. They have undergone a period of extensive reviews of its internal processes and project delivery workflow, and had identified two primary areas where improvements were desired: Internal Operational Efficiency Capital […]
The James P. Womack Scholarship & Philanthropy Fund (JPW Foundation) reflects on the outcomes of their ‘lean internship,’ which offers a hands-on practical experience to students while helping nonprofits help more people. In a recently created guide, the JPW Fund explains how the first two interns started in the Fall of 2019, and how they […]
Written by Brion
Humble Design Detroit (HDD) furnishes homes for individuals and families transitioning out of homelessness. They furnished ten more homes in 2021 than they did in 2020, an increase that the community service organization previously couldn’t imagine. They don’t plan to stop there: HDD is aiming to provide an additional 12 homes in 2022. The improvement […]
Written by Brion
OU ISE students use ‘Lean Thinking’ to improve operations, optimize space at Humble Design warehouse
Utilizing “Lean Thinking,” Oakland University Industrial and Systems Engineering students Monisha Vasudeva and Sagar Bajaj have been helping Humble Design — a nonprofit that furnishes homes for individuals and families transitioning out of homelessness — improve their operations and optimize the space inside the organization’s warehouse in Pontiac, Mich. Humble Design staff members, ISE faculty […]
Written by Brion
This is the audio of a presentation given by Fire Captain Brad Brown at the 2017 Lean Municipal Government Forum in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Brad shared how the fire department’s use of A3 thinking has yielded real, powerful results. One of the fire prevention projects (shared in the downloads) has led to reduced “on scene” […]
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Danielle Hinz is the Chief Procurement Officer for King County, Washington. She had a very small experience with Lean in the organization where she come from in Colorado. But it was nothing like what they were doing in Finance and Business Operations (FBOD). There was already a framework of visual management and visual control whiteboards that […]
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The Lean transformation at the Grand Rapids Fire Department started around 10 years ago (after the 2008 downturn). They had to lay off firefighters, had trouble answering over 20,000 emergency runs a year, and their infrastructure was crumbling. They started with the A3 problem solving tool. Grand Rapids, Michigan is one of the fastest growing […]
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The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (JFS) had internal customers request delivery or pick-up of state record boxes. Emergency situations such as requests for files for litigation or audits cause the delivery schedule to go awry. Employees frequently work past their scheduled work day, or run out of time to complete deliveries. They […]
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Change was needed at the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services because there was no standard process for their orientation, screening, assessment and treatment plan. Current and future state mapping was conducted to identify improvement opportunities. Ideas were brainstormed and organized using an Affinity diagram, and included orientation training, visualizing the waiting list, […]
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The City of Melbourne is leading the way in applying lean to local government in Australia, having embarked on its lean journey in earnest in 2009. As it often happens in organizations in sectors relatively new to the methodology, City of Melbourne (CoM) staff was skeptical of the method’s application to local government and in […]
Written by Brion