Why governments need to apply ‘Lean Thinking’

Dennis Keay** - MBA, MEngSci; Lean Thinking expert with Lean Capabilities International, with over 20 years practical experience; USJ associate.

A set of management principles and practices known as “lean thinking” emerged out of the manufacturing arena some years ago, with the term ‘lean’ referring to trimming the ‘fat’ from various processes or tasks. As the underlying lean principles and practices go far beyond the manufacturing arena, a better term was needed, hence the term ‘lean thinking’ was born.  The ‘thinking’ part relates to people relentlessly thinking about how their job can continually be improved and simplified. These improvements do not have to be large.  A 1% improvement every day, or even every week, makes an enormous difference by the end of the year.  Frequently, however, a very small change in the way we do a job can make an enormous improvement in the end result. Lean is not about working harder, it’s about working smarter.
In most parts of the world, the manufacturing sector has predominantly been that of private industry.  In this environment, if you do not improve your quality, reduce your costs, and get your product to market faster, all at the same time, then you simply go out of business because your competitor, who is doing these things, takes your customer. Due to this competitive environment, it has been in the private sector, particularly manufacturing, where ‘lean thinking experts’ have developed their expertise, and they soon come to realise that ‘a process is a process is a process’. Government is full of processes–so the lean thinking expert knows that government systems and processes can be improved by the application of lean thinking principles and practices.
In the government sector, there are not the same external competitive pressures to drive change.  If the government is not continually improving its service delivery and performance, the ‘customer’ can’t simply go to a different supplier.  However, governments do typically want to improve services for their people. Lean practices streamline processes and remove unnecessary activities and waste. This which makes life easier and simpler for citizens in dealing with government bureaucracies. In addition, inefficient systems and complacent practices lead to lost opportunities in terms of attracting investors and other contributors to our communities. If bureaucratic systems are too difficult to deal with (i.e. processes take too long) then potentially valuable contributors to society will seek alternative destinations.
As humans, we don’t know what we don’t know, and so typically we don’t look for things we have never seen or heard about. Why would someone in a government role, who has never been in a manufacturing organisation, assume that a manufacturer may be able to help them improve their processes? After all, public servants are likely to assume “We’re different!”- a phrase I’ve heard all too often. The catch is “Who is willing to listen?”, and the answer is “astute, visionary government employees”, who realise that there are pressures for government to change., and that tThese visionaries can make a significant personal contributions to makeing theseat changes occur. In many countries the population is aging, so the supply of money and resources is reducing while the demand for services is increasing. One way to help meet this demand is to do the work more efficiently and effectively, thereby freeing up some time to deliver greater scale and scope of services – without increasing resources or costs.  A side benefit is that people typically prefer to work in a simple, smooth running system as opposed to a complex chaotic one.
There is certainly proof of Lean Thinking working for government. Lean Thinking workshops that I run are frequently attended by government participants, and, armed with new knowledge, they are simplifying their work, reducing costs, and improving service delivery. One of these people has now been promoted to manager of a special group. This group has been formed to help his government department, of 11,000 people, introduce lean thinking principles and practicses. They are getting fantastic results and it is not difficult to achieve. For example, one we have reduced process,the tasks performed by five people, has beento simplified toer a processtask requiring only one person. The service delivery time has been reduced by around 80% while thus freeing up four people to work on delivery of other services. By applying Lean Thinking principles,We have also reduced of to the problem of government vehicle accidents (most of them in an government building car park), the accident rate and associated costs have been government vehicle accidents (most of them in an government building car park)significantly reduced. by determining root causes and implementing preventive measures. It is only fitting that those astute public servants government employees who become the trail-blazers in implementing lean thinking within government should be well recognised and rewarded by their leaders—and thanked by the rest of us.

** Leanda Lee, Senior Lecturer at USJ, contributed to this article
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