In a TPM Cafe blog entry titled Making Government Work, Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa talks about how he is bringing Lean government using kaizen and other tools.

Just a sample on this Lean government blog entry: "We combined four departments of government into one administrative agency, which improved service within state government and saved money at the same time."

There's more good information at the governor's Results Iowa website, including some good improvement metrics called the Operational Scan as well as their Enterprise Strategic Plan that is reminiscent of top level Hoshin Kanri objectives (which they appear to have cascaded down to at least the departmental level).

It's great to see a governor who is using Lean to cut costs when revenues fall so the state can maintain services for citizens. Write to your senator, governor or congressman and ask them to do kaizen at your local government! It's our duty as citizens (customers of the government) to ask, it's their duty as public servants to make wise use of our resources.