In 2011, legislation was passed to spearhead lean thinking across the State of Connecticut. The program was originally rolled out by April Capone in 2012 with the assistance of the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), and a full-time role position was created and filled in Nov 2013 by Alison Fisher. Ron Pereira from Gemba Academy attended […]
Their history of Lean in this department went back to Total Quality Management (TQM) in the 1990’s, where they started to map out processes to identify improvement ideas. However, what was missing from TQM was the leadership commitment and employee involvement in the improvement work. There was a $7B deficit that drove the need to […]
Written by Brion
Ron Pereira of Gemba Academy participated in Connecticut’s statewide Lean Showcase for 2016, held at the Connecticut State Capitol. He met with several of Connecticut’s officials and other state employees to discuss their governmental Lean journey and recorded interviews and sessions about LeanCT improvement projects. Links below will go to a summary article about each […]
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The State of Connecticut Department of Administrative Services (DAS) established a lean facilitator role to help expand the use of Lean in their organization to better serve other agencies and taxpayers. Jason Crisco describes the steering committee (DAS Lean Council) they set up, and some of the projects and events they have worked on in […]
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The Department of Administrative Services is responsible for setting policy for statewide travel across all agencies, and they needed to have processes that were updated to the 21st century, as many were outdated and burdensome. There was resistance to spending an entire week in a lean event, especially when dealing with staff shortages. However, they […]
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The Procurement office within the Department of Administrative Services in the State of Connecticut actually began its improvement journey in the late 1990’s with a paperless effort. In 2013, IT procurement was taking too long and with a recent merger, a lean event was coordinated. They had lots of success in the first official event, […]
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Commissioner Melody Currey explains the functions of the Department of Administrative Services, and how they started their lean journey. Her previous experience at the Department of Transportation (DOT) was valuable to selling the program to the staff. She shares how it brings people together to understand how their whole process works, and how they can […]
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Adrienne Allen and Elizabeth Rivera share their thoughts about a kaizen event they participated in with the Department of Corrections. When inmates are incarcerated, their personal property is collected and stored at each facility. Each facility works under the same policies, but implement it in different ways. They were looking to streamline the process using […]
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The department was looking to reduce their expenditures through efficiency. They performed a week-long kaizen event using the current state value stream map format. They also found that they build stronger relationships with other participants in the event. You can hear more about the lean event by watching the video called “DOC Spending Money Right” […]
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The Department of Corrections (DOC) wanted to streamline the parole release process and documentation packages. They had to coordinate between correctional facilities, treatment, custody, case workers, and office staff to improve consistency in the release process across facilities. Depending on which facility they were in and who the warden was, their ability to get released […]
Written by Brion