Lean goes Live at Indiana State Police

It is always exciting when a non-traditional organization embraces Lean and Continuous Improvement processes. It is even better when you get an opportunity to be a part of it. I have to give a big shout out to Mike Lepper and his team at the Indiana State Police. He attended our training at Ivy Tech Community College in 2009, and has some great momentum going into 2010.

from Mike.....

Hi Doug,



Just wanted to give you an update on our first kaizen event. We chose to focus on our internal investigations process. The current state at the time of the event was 51 days from the beginning of the investigation through the review and conclusion of the investigation. This was our average over the last three or four years. Our goal was to get the average down to under 30 days. To date we have completed four investigations in our streamlined (waste reduced) process and the average has been 31 days, a 40% improvement! As we continue to work the small bugs out of our process in the next few investigations I am sure we will get well below our 30 day goal.


The event pluses were amazing and our very diverse team was really impressed with the whole process. It was exciting to see how energized this group was during our 3 day event. Thanks to you and Finney for your great instruction and guidance!


Mike Lepper, Lieutenant
Indiana State Police
Continuous Improvement Unit

"What are you changing?"

Networking Group

Join the FinTek Group on Linkedin so Finney and Doug can keep track of y'all. I tried to contact via email, contact list.



If we have done work with you all over the last 6 years, we would love to keep in touch with you, and have you be able to see who is in the fraternity.



Let's go live!



Link is below



http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1790452

When the finance guy doesn't see the value??

Team:

I was networking the other day and the guy (looking for work) was telling me how great a job the MEP had done in implementing Lean into the organization. I asked him if he could quantify the savings, he look at me kind of funny, and said, "You know that's what our Finance guy was always asking!" He had a problem with the program in that we could never really tell him the return prior to doing the event. My reply was that the finance guy was right on.

I asked him if they had a charter, that simple 1 page document that scopes, and defines the opportunity prior to doing the event?

Well you can guess what his answer was...............

What are your thoughts of the power of using a event/project charter?

Simon Says No?????

Okay in the world of American Idol, Simon sometimes explains himself, and other times he just says "No!". Almost always for good reason in that the singing (data!) indicates that the person need to try something else. The thing is that even in the face of the data, some contestants are trying to convince Simon that they are better than the data would appear. You have to admire that fortitude and perseverance. It is a great lesson. Often we have experienced folks trying to talk the team into a No, without even starting the journey, and without any real data.

Bottom line, don't talk yourself or let others talk you into a No, when the journey has just began, and/or in the absence of data.