Lean Six Sigma in Government / Public Sector
Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is equally applicable to government / public sector as it is to the private sector (manufacturing or service).
Government agencies are technically no difference from any other organizations that provide services or products to their customers. The key differences are:
– their customers are citizens, the public and other stakeholders who may be different from customers of private companies
– the revenue stream is generally from various forms of tax or licensing fees, with the agencies being allocated budget for consumption
Other than the differences in the “Business model”, government agencies, as in any private organizations, are required to provide their customers with comprehensive, efficient and quality services at optimal costs.
Some unique challenges of LSS implementation in the government / public sector are as follows:
– Need to reduce red tape. Civil servants must adopt a customer centric attitude to avoid over regulation. They need to balance between effective control and efficient service.
– Need to improve cross-functional operations. Much inefficiency occurs between departments or agencies where the services and processes straddle across them. There is a need to have an end-to-end view from the perspective of the customers (public / citizens)
– Some processes are overly complex that result in frequent delays and errors.
– Processes usually are lengthy due to numerous management reviews, inspections and checks.
– Mindset. There may be no explicit motivation for urgency or process improvement. The fear of making mistakes and “what is in it for me” are compounded and may result in inertia for pushing their limits for quality, service, effectiveness and efficiency.
LSS has been implemented in many different industries with great success. Some of the industries are as follows:
- Lean Six Sigma in Manufacturing
- Lean Six Sigma in Service Industry
- Lean Six Sigma in Shared Service Centres (SSC)
- Lean Six Sigma in Continuous Process Industry
- Lean Six Sigma for Research & Development (R&D)
There are many useful Lean Six Sigma tools within the Lean Six Sigma toolbox. However, for LSS implementation to be successful, do not focus only on the tools but instead strike a balance between two important components of LSS – technical tools as well as soft skills.
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