In Lean government news, kaizen is taking place in the Scottish government according to the Scotsman online news. An article titled The Man Who Would Save Scottish Industry on Sunday profiled kaizen consultant, excuse me, resultant Stuart Ross. Mr. Ross has been doing good work with kaizen not only in Scottish industry but is also bringing Lean government to Scotland.

Mr. Ross' presentations and kaizen results with the Aberdeen Council have attracted the attention of the finance minister no less, according to the article:

The council's planning department wanted to speed up its process. As a result of changes now introduced, the time for processing applications has been reduced from up to eight days to three. In half of cases it takes just one day, and uses half the resources. There were similar improvements in the social work department, where no jobs were lost, but instead more staff were employed with clients rather than in paperwork.

Quoting Mr. Ross in the article:

"Lean thinking can be applied to almost any process, but the key is the involvement of those who actually do the work. I passionately believe that companies, councils and the NHS can make major improvements across all their key measures once they learn how to involve their staff in the elimination of wasted time."

Well stated. And he's doing this with a disability that would sideline most kaizen consultants. That's one less excuse to do kaizen. With more people like Mr. Ross we'll win the battle against waste one person, one process, one department, and one government at a time. This is very exciting stuff.