# Presentation: 514935

## Working Smart for Environmental Protection

- Teresa Hay McMahon
- State of Iowa

## What is Lean?

- Lean
- Lean is a collection of principles and tools that improve the speed of any process by eliminating waste.
- Waste is most prevalent in information flows
- “Common sense uncommonly applied”
- Tools include kaizen, value stream mapping, Design for Lean Sigma and 5S

## 2003

- Approached by the Iowa Coalition for Innovation & Growth
*Hot Team* on Business Development Processes
- Improve key business development processes that are viewed as barriers to a business’s ability to develop and/or grow in Iowa
- Public-private partnership proposed
- Facilitator offered to run event

## The Issue

- Air Quality new source construction permits
- Issue ~ 2,000 permits per year
- Average lead time: 62 days
- 62 days was one of the fastest permit times in the country so what was the problem?

## The Solution

- KAIZEN
- A highly focused, action oriented event
- Clear objectives,
- Measurement focused,
- Data driven and fact based,
- Uses creativity before capital
- Two to five days in length
- Empowered team takes action to improve a specific process
- The new process is implemented immediately

## Kaizen Breakthrough Methodology

**Day 4**

**Day 1**

**Day 2**

**Day 3**

**Create and map new process**

**Business Process Kaizen**
**Standard Operations**
**5S**
**Kaizen Methodology**
**Tools & Techniques**

## The Results

- Lead time reduced to 12 days
- Steps cut by 70%
- Handoffs (permit moving from person to person) cut from 18 to 4
- 600 permit application backlog eliminated in six months
- Process became more customer friendly
- 800 number installed for questions

## What Did We Learn?

- We could improve customer service without sacrificing the environment
- We could sustain the gains and continue to improve: Lead time down to six days within six months
- Change could occur in one week - unheard of speed in government

## Typical Waste

- Defects: Data errors; missing information
- Over production: Unneeded reports
- Waiting: Approval cycle
- Moving items: Report routing
- Over processing: Obsolete data on shared drives
- Inventory: Excess material/information
- Excess motion: Trips to remote printer

## Kaizen Does not...

-  Force hasty, inadequate work
-  Cut corners
-  Work against the agency mission
-  Seek to fault staff

**Kaizen Does not...**

## Kaizen Does...

- Increase awareness of the function and value of all roles
- Break down “silos” within and between departments and divisions
- Challenge the prevailing winds

**Kaizen Does...**

## What Does It Take?

- Successful process improvement requires organizational commitment over the long term
- You must DRIVE change from the top down
- Communication
- Proactive
- Frequent
- Consistent
- External stakeholders at the table

## Leadership

- Senior management engagement and commitment are the most important factors in long-term success
- Top-down drive to change the culture to one of continuous improvement

## Overcoming History

- Every other “flavor-of-the-month” that didn’t meet expectations
-  TQM
-  CQI
-  MBWA
-  Nothing speaks louder than results
-  Don’t feed the CAVE people

## Changing Expectations

-  Overcoming the “whip-smart” mindset
-  Fear of lay-offs, placing blame
-  Negative impacts on regulatory
-    stringency
-  No time for a week away from work
-  For customers:
- Government does not equal Bureaucracy

**Changing Expectations**

## Follow-Up

-  30, 60 and 90-days
-  Completing the homework for full
-     implementation
-  Sustain the Gains
-  6-month and 1-year audits

**Follow-Up**

## Project Selection Criteria

- Funding concerns
- Customer service complaints
- Productivity problems
- High volume and/or criticality
- Evaluate potential projects based on their potential impact on customers and citizens, and their impact on internal effectiveness or efficiency.

## Why Try Lean?

- Eliminate or dramatically reduce permit application **backlogs**
- Reduce **lead times** for permit reviews by more than 50%
- Decrease the **complexity** of permit processes
- Improve the **quality** of permit applications and the **consistency** of permit reviews
- Allocate more staff time to “**mission critical” work**
- Improve staff **morale** and process **transparency**