Written by The City of Ankeny, one of the fastest growing cities in Iowa, prides itself on providing high quality municipal services, excellent customer service and sound fiscal management.
The City of Ankeny wanted to make their accounts payable process more efficient because it was cumbersome and included many steps. These steps involved a number of different departments and necessitated the routing of multiple documents, resulting in frustration for both staff and vendors.
Lean consultants helped City staff create an ideal “future state” and came up with solutions to address each of the key issues identified. These solutions included streamlining the accounts payable process, implementing electronic payments, and initiating a purchasing card system.
City staff were excited to implement the solutions and the results have been positive:
- Electronic payments were implemented, reducing costs for checks, envelopes and postage
- Purchasing cards were implemented, providing additional purchasing options and electronic workflow into the financial software which eliminated data entry
- The entire purchasing process was streamlined by changes in the purchase order and vendor registration processes and provided training opportunities to staff
- Overall staff time was minimized and costs were reduced
Read the entire article at http://www.workplacelean.org/helper_pages/FileGet.aspx?id=25