Bringing Lean Management to New York State
In January of 2011 shortly after taking office as Governor, Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order creating the Spending and Government Efficiency (SAGE) Commission. The purpose of SAGE is to modernize and rightsize government to make it more efficient, effective and accountable.
On December 15, 2011, the SAGE Commission met and approved some interesting recommendations. As a supporter of utilizing Lean Management in government, I was pleased to see that the Commission has recommended the following:
Establish an Office of Lean Management for New York State - Hire two Lean Management professionals to develop Lean capabilities across state government by conducting training sessions for agency managers.
First pioneered at Toyota over 50 years ago, Lean is a philosophy and long proven approach for organizations of any size or type to continuously improve. With Lean there is a focus on eliminating waste, improving productivity, and achieving sustained continual improvement in an organization. Lean is built on the philosophy that small, incremental changes routinely applied and sustained over a long period result in significant improvements overall.
Lean seeks to foster a culture where employees are empowered to identify and solve problems. Lean organizations empower their members on the front lines by teaching them how to identify ‘waste’, or anything that doesn’t add value to the process.
Eight Common Wastes that are often roadblocks to efficiency:
1. Overproducing: unneeded reports, doing work not requested.
2. Waiting: time for approval cycles, waiting for information or decisions.
3. Transportation: unnecessary movement of reports, storage of documents.
4. Inventory: backlog of work, (permits, plan approvals) excess materials/info, obsolete databases/files.
5. Unnecessary motions: trips to printer and copier, unnecessary movement to find files and supplies, travel to meetings.
6. Processing waste: spending time on unnecessary processes that do not add value to the customer.
7. Defects: data errors, missing info, errors in documents, wasted effort on inspection or re-doing work that was already done.
8. Unused human potential: not fully utilizing employee problem solving skills to add value to the customer or the company.
Every program/department in government can be improved by addressing the eight items above. It is great to see New York under Governor Cuomo’s leadership moving to implement Lean as a way to improve the performance of government. Three New York agencies are already utilizing Lean to improve their operations:
Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services - Reduced the amount of time it takes to complete their Request For Proposal process by 53% (146 days).
New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities - It currently takes the agency 300+ days to do a State Auspice Transfer. By utilizing Lean the agency projects that it can reduce the time to 120 days.
Department of Environmental Conservation - It currently takes the DEC 250+ days to issue a New Air Quality Permit. By utilizing Lean the agency projects that such permits can be issued within 121 days max.
For more information on how Lean is being used in government check out the following links:
http://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/MaleyeffReport.pdf
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2007/04/lean_government.html
http://www.epa.gov/lean/government/starterkit/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_Government
What do you think about utilizing Lean as a way to improve government performance?
The definition of reinvent is:to replace with an entirely new version, to make over completely, to recast something familiar or old into a different form.In my opinion we need to reinvent government, business and ourselves. Today’s world is about constant change driven by the power of new ideas.For the past 17 years as an attorney, I have worked in government at the county, city, authority and school district level in the Buffalo, NY area. I have seen first hand the need for reinventing how government operates. For a period of four years, I served as Chief of Staff to the 9 member City of Buffalo Common Council. Government must engage the talents and skills of its citizens by becoming more collaborative and transparent in its decision-making and operations. Utilizing technology as a tool to engage citizens is something all governments need to explore.I have great respect for entrepreneurs as they put their passion into a vision, which results in new products, new services and new jobs. Entrepreneurs are on the front lines of change. As an adjunct college instructor, I see how students and everyone for that matter must continually change and reinvent themselves to survive and be successful in today’s crazy world economy.Some of my favorite change agent writers are Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Gary Hamel and Guy Kawasaki. I welcome the opportunity to meet new people, to further my own learning and to share ideas.On a personal note I am 47 years old, my other half Cheryl is an attorney in private practice and together we have three children, Michael age 20 and Joseph age 14 and our newest shock of an addition Julia, born 11/2/11. 
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