Ann Moses of King County government (in Seattle) talks about a unique lean Green Belt program that integrates Racial Equity and Social Justice. As one of her IT Department’s lead racial equity trainers, when Ann received her lean Black Belt she saw a deep alignment and affinity between lean values and racially equity and social […]
New projects for King County mean new grants and new cost centers. But setting up cost centers was taking too long and nothing could proceed without the new cost center. There were customers waiting over 30 days—and some 80 days—to have their forms processed. Megan Rulien, an Administrator at King County Finance and Business Operations […]
Written by Brion
Bill Wilbert has worked for the King County Wastewater Treatment Division for 17 years. He’s an Environmental Programs Supervisor for the division and manages the permitting and regulatory compliance workforce. Sandy Kilroy was the Assistant Director for the King County Wastewater Treatment Division. She’s been with Wastewater for a little over 5 years but within […]
Written by Brion
King County streamlines the travel expense process with Eunjoo Greenhouse, the Deputy Director of the Finance and Business Operations Division (FBOD). Valerie Ceban, a Budget Analyst for the Department of Information Technology, wanted to help too as she oversaw the lengthy travel approval process and wanted a good project to pursue her Green Belt Certification. Initial […]
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Jim Shoemaker is streamlining a process to help King County landlords register as suppliers to veterans. The process required veterans to fill out 18 pages of documentation to verify landlords. Then staff had to process those 18 pages, if there was any missing information, it resulted in multiple delays. A “Virtual” walk exercise revealed they […]
Written by Brion
King County Wastewater Treatment Division successfully improves the Capital Design process featuring Roger Browne, an Engineering Supervisor. Roger realized that since the Wastewater Treatment Division was short on staff, they had to find a way to reduce the time it took to deliver capital improvement projects in order to free up resources to get more […]
Written by Brion
After receiving many calls from angry taxpayers who were forced to pay extra interest and penalties on their mortgages. Mortgage payment deadlines were being mailed, but due to outdated information in their system, many taxpayers weren’t receiving these notices. Mail blow backs were likely responsible, which are are any returned mail that was unable to […]
Written by Brion
Kara Cuzzetto is a Lean Specialist at King County and previously worked in Healthcare where she became Lean certified. The Wastewater Division process for Procurement Contracts took over 300 days to complete and team members didn’t fully understand the entire process. The team performed a Gemba Walk, created a Process Map which allowed them to understand the whole […]
Written by Brion
Kimberly Fleming works for the Retirement Team at King County in the state of Washington. The Position Eligibility Worksheet was a huge pain point for everyone involved in the Retirement Position Eligibility program. The team was tasked with creating value stream maps of processes within their department to identify waste. After reviewing the form with the 8 Wastes in mind, […]
Written by Brion
Chris Franco was a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Special Projects Coordinator at King County in the state of Washington. His team at King County decided it was time to focus on the Special District Fund Request Process. It was a painful process for the customer which made it a great opportunity for improvement. […]
Written by Brion