Lean is a journey of continuous improvement and throughout their journey, Lean Advisors has introduced Lean thinking and applications at the day to day operational level through Enterprise Value Stream Mapping as well as at the strategic, business planning level through Hoshin Planning. That enterprise level of commitment is delivering results in terms of improved efficiency, productivity, staff engagement and most importantly with increased client satisfaction.

Here is their story:

In 2008, The Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) adopted the Lean business process improvement strategy.  SAMA is responsible for the governance of the overall assessment system in Saskatchewan, and the provision of assessment services to our 756 client municipalities.  The Agency provides a financial foundation for municipalities and the education sector that they can use to establish and sustain local programs and services.

Lean is aimed at engaging the talents of the Agency’s people to eliminate waste, and create value for our customers.  With an ever-increasing workload and limited resources, Lean helps to ensure that SAMA’s clients’ and stakeholders’ needs are successfully met.

Thanks to the commitment of staff and Senior Management, SAMA is involving people throughout the Agency to tackle some of the challenges affecting the property assessment system in Saskatchewan.

“One of Lean’s strengths is its focus: the people most familiar with the actual work determine the necessary process improvements and plan the necessary changes,” said SAMA CEO Irwin Blank.  “The Agency has achieved significant progress to date, and Lean process improvement initiatives will continue to be a focus for SAMA in 2013 and beyond.”

Because the Agency looks for input from staff and management in all eight of our regional offices across the province, as well as our central office in Regina, the Agency has opted to train all staff and managers in Lean processes.  Staff all receive Introduction to Lean training, and many staff have received further training in Lean processes and change management.  The Agency currently has 14 certified Green Belts, and 5 certified Black Belts.  There are an additional four certified Green Belts who are currently Black Belt candidates, as well as another 14 Green Belt candidates.  Six of SAMA’s Executives have also completed Green Belt training.

To help guide and steer the Agency’s Lean journey, SAMA uses value stream mapping to improve the Lean process.  One of these improvements was to develop a Lean Manual.  The manual outlines details on creating and managing value streams, organizing and executing Rapid Improvement Events and the roles and responsibilities of staff, value stream leaders, facilitators and others.  All staff can access the manual on SAMA’s intranet system.

SAMA currently has several value stream maps in progress representing the different areas of focus within the Agency. For the operations area (Assessment Services) SAMA has value streams for Data Verification, Revaluation, Support of Value and Industrial Assessments.  For the Agency’s support divisions SAMA has value streams for Revaluation Governance, Finance, Quality Assurance, Human Resources and Agency Planning.

SAMA’s original Lean goals were:

• A 25% increase in efficiency and productivity between 2009 and 2013;

• Highly engaged staff, that take ownership of the business processes; and

• An Agency in a much better position to meet the increasing demands from clients.

Under the Lean initiative the Agency has:

• Advanced the Agency’s annual property maintenance program by 3-4 months and in 2012 completed the work for 62% of our client municipalities by December 31^st.  In comparison, only 14% of client municipalities received their annual property maintenance by December 31^st in 2009.  Property maintenance occurs when municipalities request SAMA to do on-site inspections of specific individual properties, usually where significant developments or changes have been made that have altered the physical data on  a property.

• Increased property reinspection productivity 57% over four years from 761 properties per appraiser Full Time Equivalent (FTE) in 2008 to 1,198 properties per appraiser FTE in 2012.  Periodically, municipalities must have all their properties reinspected on-site to verify that physical data and valuations are accurate.

• Made changes to sales verification, market analysis and support of value processes and reduced total appraiser time to complete the 2009-2012 revaluation cycle by 28.1 FTEs or 22% – an average of 7.0 FTEs for each year of the program.  Sales verification and market analysis are two key components of the Agency’s revaluation work that happens on a four year cycle. SAMA is also required to participate in property appeals and provide full disclosure of how property values are determined. This responsibility for openness and full disclosure is part of what SAMA calls “support of value.”

SAMA’s 2014 to 2017 Lean goals are:

• Increase the number of properties that an appraiser can review by 80% from 1,029 to 1,850 properties annually using Lean business process and technology improvements.
• Double the number of properties that an appraiser can reinspect from 1,050 to 2,100 properties annually using Lean business process and technology improvements.
• Utilize Lean value-stream mapping events and other tools to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of work processes.
• Improve the efficiency and productivity of annual maintenance processes resulting in the reallocation of 14 FTEs to the property reinspection program by 2018.
• Based on continued significant growth expected in Saskatchewan’s energy and minerals sectors, the agency will progressively double the capacity of our industrial program by 2017.  Lean process improvements, software upgrades, cost model simplification and remote data collection tablets will improve the efficiency of the industrial property assessment program by 25%.

• Efficiencies will be attained in delivery of the revaluation and annual maintenance programs that will allow the reassignment of critical appraiser resources to the reinspection program – increasing the agency’s average capacity for reinspections from 8 FTEs in 2013 to 27 FTEs annually by 2018.

The agency will continue to build on the Lean improvements attained over the past five years. The plan takes a long term and careful approach to innovative new business processes, and it invests in technology to ensure the sustainability of the property assessment base and municipal and education property tax revenues.

The focus for 2014-17 will be on sustaining current levels of service for our governance responsibilities, continuing to improve the delivery of assessment valuation services to our clients, and building the capacity to enable the Agency to reinspect all properties at least once every 12 years.

SAMA’s Lean journey has been one of trial and error and learning from our missteps.  The Agency’s Lean transformation has required this learning process, which will ultimately help us move towards becoming a truly Lean organization. With a strong commitment and growing knowledge of Lean, SAMA is constantly looking for ways that Lean can influence and improve our everyday business, and in turn, help us provide our customers with the best service possible.

The federal government’s overhaul of Canada’s refugee determination system is driving the Immigration and Refugee Board to embrace business efficiency practices pioneered six decades ago by Japanese automaker Toyota.

Ahead of the expected December implementation of the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, the IRB is turning to “Lean” processes that it hopes will enable it to deal with refugee applications and appeals much more expeditiously.

The new law imposes tight statutory time frames for the board to hear and decide applications and appeals. Whereas it now takes an average of 19 months for the IRB’s refugee protection division to complete an initial hearing, the revised system requires that to be done within 30 to 60 days.

For those whose claims are denied, a new refugee appeal division must hear cases within 60 to 90 days, and reach decisions in as little as 30 days. Further complicating the IRB’s task is a backlog of more than 38,000 refugee claims it has yet to deal with.

“Compliance with these time frames requires the IRB to transform the way it operates so that it can hear and decide refugee claims and appeals much faster that is currently the case,” the board says in an email, adding that a Lean transformation is “particularly appropriate for an organization undergoing fundamental change.”

In a nutshell, Lean practices identify and eliminate all activities in a process that don’t add value for the intended customer. The result can be dramatic improvements in efficiency.

The IRB started down the Lean road in late 2010 following passage of an earlier government initiative, the Balance Refugee Reform Act. Earlier this month, spurred on by the latest reforms, it advertised for a consultant to “facilitate Lean business process improvements.”

The goal, the IRB said, is to “yield a sustainable refugee determination process that will meet the legislated timelines while ensuring that cases are dealt with efficiently, fairly and in accordance with the law.”

While Lean practices are still relatively rare in Canada’s public sector, they are becoming more common as government departments and agencies grapple with shrinking resources coupled with steady or growing demand for services.

Canada Post adopted Lean nearly two decades ago and the Royal Canadian Mint has been doing the same for nearly a decade. The Export Development Corporation and Passport Canada are also on a Lean diet.

But the Canadian leader in Lean is the government of Saskatchewan. After the Lean approach saved millions of dollars and cut wait times for treatment in the province’s health-care system, Premier Brad Wall expanded the initiative to all government ministries in 2010. Earlier this year, he even appointed a cabinet minister, Nancy Heppner, with specific responsibility for the Lean initiative.

Despite their roots in manufacturing, Lean ideas are readily transferable to any public sector process that involves multiple steps, says Mike Miles, director of the MBA program at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management.

“Any approach that forces people to sit down and ask themselves the question, ‘Where are we wasting time, money and energy,’ that’s a good process,” he says.

At the Mint, Lean practices cut the time to develop a new product in half, doubled the throughput of coins in some areas and simplified many steps and processes. Lean also helped the Mint transform a $3-million loss in 2003 into a record $68-million profit in 2009.

Lean Advisors has deep experience helping people in government undergo this journey. Our Lean consultants understand political pressures, seemingly contradictory requirements, and the complexity of achieving true end-to-end value in large complex organizations. Our customer community is full of champions who have overcome barriers and made Lean Government a reality.

Lean Advisors employs senior consultants who are veterans in the industries they serve. To learn more about how we can help you make your organization everything that it can be, Contact Us or Call 1-877-778-6413.