Lean Government

Direct Instruction, Standardized Work and Kaizen

I learned about something called Direct Instruction in chapter seven of Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres. This book is a light and entertaining read on statistics and evidence-based decisions in marketing, education, healthcare and government policy. I recommend this to anyone who is interested in design of experiments, management by more>>

A Bureaucracy Which Enables Kaizen

The organizational characteristics of the Toyota Production System have been described as the combination of rigid and scripted rules with a high degree of flexibility to respond and change as needed. Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis. These two opposing characteristics are not often found existing together as a high functioning organizational model. more>>

Newt Gingrich Wants to Kaizen the U.S.A.

Newt Gingrich wants to kaizen the U.S.A. He talks of "a world that works, and a world that doesn't" using the example of FedEx versus the U.S. Federal Government in this video clip on Youtube. In an August 7, 2007 speech at the National Press Club (you can find the more>>

Lean for Airports (Dare to Dream...)

The new Nagoya International Airport was famously built under budget and faster than scheduled thanks to help in Lean thinking from Toyota advisors. In another example of public-private partnership, a July 17, 2007 Computerworld UK article reports that Lean methods drive Heathrow Terminal 5 development. British Airways (BA) plays the more>>

Wisconsin Continues to Lead in Lean Government

We've written before about the support by the State of Wisconsin for Lean manufacturing efforts for companies in that state, as well as efforts to bring Lean practices into government itself. Lean manufacturing support by government, and for government, has a new champion on Wisconsin: Mary Burke, the Secretary of more>>

Who is the Lean U.S. Presidential Candidate for 2008?

Back in 2005 I made a very early endorsement for the Lean U.S. Presidential Candidate for 2008. Now that the date is closer and the field of candidates has expanded, it's time to take another look. The aforementioned endorsement is officially suspended. Governor Tom Vilsack was a hopeful, based on more>>

Taking the Toyota Production System to City Hall

There was an encouraging article about Lean government in the March 15, 2007 NB Online (Nikkei Business) titled City Hall in Aichi Studies at Toyota to "Enhance the Capabilities of the Staff" (愛知の市役所がトヨタで修行して「職員力」アップ). Takahama City in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, has been studying with Toyota since the end of 2005 in more>>

The War On Waste

During training in how to do kaizen, a key activity is helping people understand the concept of waste and make it relevant to their own organization and to their own work. As long as waste is something abstract, or something that happens in the factory but not in software development more>>

Scott County Schools Trying Out the Toyota Way

Today's article in the Lexington Herald-Leader made my day a little bit better. The Scott County Way: Educators take a page from 'The Toyota Way' to boost curriculums: It seemed only natural that Toyota's corporate culture would influence the local schools, said Superintendent Dallas Blankenship. He estimated that one in more>>

Let's Establish a Waste and Efficiency Tip Line... and then Another One

I caught a rerun of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night on television. The bit of news involved the $22 billion in cash lost in Iraq during Paul Bremer's time there. Both political parties want to be seen as addressing this problem, but sadly not as a team. more>>

Toyota Botches Lean Implementation at Japan Post?

A Lean service implementation has been in progress for the last three years at Japan Post, the public sector entity that is Japan's postal service. Japan Post is slated to be privatized in 2007, and Toyota executives were involved in launching JPS or "Japan Postal System" a project to do more>>

Scottish Local Authority Wins Award for Kaizen

Congratulations to the Aberdeenshire Council on winning the top Performance Improvement Award from UDITE – The Association of European Local Authority Chief Executives for their kaizen efforts. Read all about it in the Buchan Observer. Kaizen in the public sector, how sweet the sound... more>>

Lean Government Buzz in Scotland

There's a bit of Scottish blood in me from my father's side and it makes me proud of every drop whenever I hear of the Lean government work Scottish public servants are doing. The September 28, 2006 edition of the Scotsman correctly reports Copying Toyota Would Put Scottish Public Sector more>>

A Heijunka Economy

As summer officially comes to a close in the United States this weekend with the kick-off of the American Football season and something Americans call Labor Day, I find myself thinking about heijunka (averaging of both your demand volume and product mix to smooth out production). As a small business more>>

How Can American Government Meet Its Productivity Challenge?

So asks a white paper by the same tile by the folks at global management consulting giant McKinsey & Company. The white paper cites an interesting statistic. The 2005 U.S. federal budget outlay was 20.3% of the GDP of the United States. If Pareto principle holds true, 80% of the more>>

See It, Smell It, Shanghai is Changing

Speaking of change, I arrived in Shanghai, China a couple of hours ago. It's quite a change of scenery from Seattle. There's a forest of yellow construction cranes across the highway from the airport building what looks like... another airport. On the way downtown from the airport the maglev (magnetic more>>

Sell Complacency, Buy Kaizen

On June 12, 2006 Minyanville News & Views commentary money manager Ryan Krueger gave the advice "sell complacency, buy kaizen". He sees the U.S. as complacent, giving evidence for the eroding dominance as the number one economy, and labels the emerging markets "kaizen", eager to improve. Although oddly Krueger isn't more>>

Kaizen in the School System: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and Problem Solving

Larry Davis, president of Daman Products Co. Inc. of Mishawaka, Indiana wants schools to teach the fundamentals of Lean management and kaizen-style problem solving from kindergarteners to high school students. Daman Products has been pursuing Lean manufacturing since 1997. Today they struggle to hire people who fit into their Lean more>>

Lean Broadcasting? NHK Calls Toyota for Help with Kaizen

Another embattled Japanese state-owned enterprise asked Toyota executives for help with kaizen yesterday. NHK (the national broadcasting corporation) has requested that Toyota send an official to join the board of directors of NHK. Toyota said "yes" within 8 hours. Toyota agreed to provide an executive, who would retire to join more>>

What is Lean Government?

As Lean manufacturing and “Lean fill-in-the-blank” take root in mainstream business consciousness I am noticing more mention of “lean government” by politicians in sound bytes as well as press releases and articles. I’m afraid that to many people Lean government means something similar to the dreaded “lean and mean” or more>>

State of Maine a Leader in Lean Government

Last week Stephen Crate who writes for the blog at iSixSigma.com on Lean government turned me onto the great work being done with Lean government at the State of Maine. Many thanks, Stephen! According to information on Stephen Crate's blog: - The Maine Department of Labor began their Lean transformation more>>

Aberdeen Authority Reinvests in Kaizen Blitz Team

Following up on Lean government news from Scotland, an article in The Buchan Observer tells of the challenges of making ends meet in Aberdeen. Costs are rising, as are fees and taxes but 16 million punds sterling have been saved through kaizen efforts. Sensibly, part of these kaizen savings will more>>

Kaizen Resultant Gets Lean Government Results in Scotland

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 more>>

Governor Vilsack Plans to Create Lean Manufacturing Institute in Iowa

Governor Tom Vilsack has been at the forefront of his commitment to Lean government in Iowa. One example is the use of kaizen for the Air Quality Permit processingat the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Another example of Lean government is through a program called Purchasing Results the state government more>>

Hope for Lean at Local Government Levels

A posting on the Evolving Excellence blog titled Putting Perfume on a Pig paints a grim picture how a panel of some of the so-called best minds brought together by the U.S. Department of Commerce think of U.S. manufacturing. Making things is out, thinking about things to make is in more>>

The Kaizen Cops Clobber Government Waste in Kenya

I've been chuckling quielty to myself for the past couple of days over an article I read. Now that I have internet access, I'd like share it with you. The Kenya News Agency headline screams ""Panic as Team Makes Abrupt Lands Office Visit". Quoting the article "Tension gripped the Murang誕 more>>

Setting the Bridges to Nowhere to the Torch

It's been a good week for Lean government. First Senator Joseph Lieberman says he will bring a "little of your Kaizen attitude back to the United States Senate" while visiting a factory doing Lean manufacturing in Connecticut. Then there was the U.S. Navy's renewed commitment to kaizen through a merger more>>

NAVAirspeed Merger to Take Kaizen to Next Level

I've recognized the commitment of the U.S. Navy to to kaizen, six sigma and continuous improvement and their achievements through NAVAIR Airspeed programs before in this blog. I'd like to recognize them again. The regular postings on the dcmilitary.com site are always a ray of hope for Lean government. Today more>>

Peter Pan, Kaizen and Joseph Lieberman

An article in today's New Britain Herald brightened what was otherwise a rainy, jet-lagged winter day here in the Puget Sound. Connecticut is a hotbed of Lean manufacturing and kaizen activity. Many clients of the Shingijutsu consulting company and early adopters of kaizen are based in Connecticut. These include Danaher, more>>

Lean Government Update Nov. 9, 2005

New Lean Government Champion in Mesa, Arizona A new potential Lean government champion hit our radar today with the appointment of Christopher J. Brady as the City Manager of Mesa, Arizona. Based on the azcentral.com article Mr. Brady brings Lean government creds including a pledge to "talk to the 'front-line more>>

Genchi Gembutsu in Aceh, Indonesia

Indonesia was not high on the list of places I thought I would read about an example of Lean government. So I was pleasantly surprised to find an article on the front page of the November 2, 2005 Wall Street Journal titled After the Tsunami, An Aceh Surprise: Good Government. more>>

How Not to Spend $453 Million

Listening to the radio on my commute last week I heard a perfect example of the opposite of Lean government. I'm always bothered by waste but this was truly disturbing. In the highway bill signed this summer there is what is known as "the Bridge to Nowhere" connecting Alaska's Gravina more>>

Kaizen in the Arabian Peninsula

Oman now has something called The Lean Government Award. Oman is a country located on the toe of the Arabian Peninsula with a population of about 3 million. Oman is one of a number of states in the area who have been actively studying kaizen. For instance the Department of more>>

Governor Vilsack Brings Lean Government to Iowa

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 more>>

Postal Service Provides Model for Lean Government

It would be easy to point out how non-Lean the U.S. government has been at city, state and federal levels these last few weeks. We've seen examples of lack of decision making, poor logistics, lack of alignment of goals, poor communication between functional areas and poor planning to name just more>>

Mr. Toyota Goes to Washington

The August 12, 2005 article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Toyota Lobbies to Avoid Blame Amid U.S. Auto Industry Woes" explains how Toyota is adding a sixth lobbyist in Washington D.C. in an effort to avoid being bashed for the woes of Ford and General Motors in the near more>>

Lean U.S. Presidential Candidate for 2008

I would like to make an early conditional endorsement for U.S. President for 2008; Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. A recent article in the Atlantic Monthly magazine profiling Governor Romney's as a potential candidate touched on his commitment to Lean government - cutting out waste and patronage from government in his more>>

Kaizen in the Naval Air Command

The U.S. Armed Forces have been using a combination of quality improvement tools and methods for many years. Recently many bases, depots and command centers have been using Lean manufacturing and six sigma tools and principles very effectively to lower cost and improve responsiveness. The work being done by the more>>

Lean Thinking at the LAPD

In a July 16, 2005 article in the Los Angeles Daily News I spotted an amazing article on how the Los Angeles Police Department is adopting Toyota Production System principles to kaizen the process of booking people they put into jail. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Lean government! Here is more>>