Lean Thinking A business success story

Kathy Alexander

CEO

1. Why Lean Thinking at CoM?

2. What is it?

3. How did we start?

4. Our lean journey and how we introduced

lean into the city.

5. The impacts and what we’ve learned.

Today

• 2007 External consultant review found $7m

savings in 3 months.

• How clever is that???

Why Lean Thinking at CoM?

Lean thinking seemed a better way

Some observations about councils

recruitment, travel, construction

zone permits, childcare, stakeholder

management, executive

correspondence, council reports,

issues management, marketing and

communications, property services,

aged care, security, planning and

building – lean worked everywhere.

“We’re different;

Lean won’t work here”

Lean Thinking in an Organisation?

Org

an

isa

tio

na

l im

pa

ct

Use of Lean Thinking

Lean Tools

within

improvement

systems Low

High

Lean Thinking

as one

improvement

system

Lean Thinking

as the

improvement

system

Lean Thinking

as a

management

system

Improving high volume

processes (end to end) Problem solving

Lean Thinking for improvement

2 main areas where improvement is focussed

Process for improvement and

problem solving Establish

Continuous

Improvement

Define

Problem /

ScopeEvaluation

and

Share

Implement

Change

Current

State

to

Future

State

Deep

Discover

Current

State

Preliminary

1

23

4

56

D

S

P

A

D

S

P

A

D

S

P

A

Projects to prove concept:

• Lean Thinking is Process Thinking

– Pick a winner

– Go See

“But we are above benchmark!”

96% uptime, target is 95%

Started in the typical way

Improving Parking Meter Uptime

Revenue Cross silo productivity

Improving services for the young and

the old - pick something important

Maternal Child Health

A top 10 ‘high volume’

process for CoM with

>11,000 occasions of

service each year

•Made the flows visible

•Understood the processes

and the work

Review and Improve

•increased administration support

•established AGREED process

•Improved IT with cost effective

cloud based system

•Triaged to identify at risk / complex

•Improved nurse schedule

templates to maximise capacity

Outcomes

•Nurses with clients 9% more

( 53% to 64% of day)

•36% increase in clients seen

(older children)

•Do Not Attends reduced by 6%

(10% to 4%)

•Customers remain satisfied and

nurses satisfaction increased

•Nurses thinking changed

Process: new baby referral,

registration and appointment

scheduling

•processes performed variably with

wrong people doing the wrong work

•85% simple, but process evolved

for complex (at risk)

•IT not fit for purpose

•nurses spending only 50% of time

in consultations

•Clients happy with service

Older People

•Home care assessment team so busy reviewing new referrals that they never reviewed existing

clients, until something went wrong

•Review of 100 patient files revealed 80% were simple. Process was designed for complex.

•Go see revealed that documentation took longer than assessment

IMPROVE

•Triage then flow segmentation and AWOW for documentation provided capacity to review patients

•28% of reviews resulted in a change to care

•Unplanned reviews reduced by 75%

Process Improvement

Show it works everywhere

Aged care, child care, maternal child health, rubbish collection

Permits, parking fines, restaurant inspections, food sampling

Council planning, strategies, issues management, stakeholder management

Capital works, signage, park rangers, tree planting

Events in parks, arts and culture grants, event planning, corporate marketing

Recruitment, business planning, document management, IT requests

Improvements for Customers & CoM

EASIER BETTER FASTER CHEAPER

Show respect

every improvement is worthy

every improvement counts

People: Lean improvement requires

people development

800 staff (75%)

150 staff

100 staff

Graduation and celebration

Where are we now? Leadership development

Coaches and develops others

Leads improvement

Collaborates and builds

partnerships

Aligns services to customer

needs

Thinks strategically

Manages resources well

Develops self

Builds effective teams

Manages performance

Leadership Capability

Lean Leader Essentials

People started to ask:

“Why are we doing this at all?”

“What’s our purpose?”

Purpose: True North led to CoM Pyramid

So What?

> $5 million >2000

days productivity

released

FASTER

Benefits the external customer/community

=

BETTER CHEAPER EASIER

WINLOG

Over 450 recorded

wins

The macro measure

23%

rise

The macro measure

20%

rise

The macro measure

16%

rise

Intangible outcomes – hate turns to love