Government bodies at any level, local, state, and Federal, can
implement Six Sigma to improve customer service and increase the
effectiveness of government. Although Six Sigma has its roots in
private-sector manufacturing, it works just as effectively in
governmental organizations and government will reap the same
benefits as corporations.
Many top companies have produced outstanding results with Six
Sigma, dramatically cutting costs, increasing profits, and
improving customer service. Governments aren?t looking for
profits, but they still have motivation to reduce their costs
and reduce the inefficiency and waste that causes cost overruns.
The reduction of variation and defects within processes is the
goal of Six Sigma and that goal is just as valid in government
as in any other industry.
Any government institution is a service organization and its
customers are the citizens it serves. Like a private sector
service business, a government benefits when it learns how to
serve their customers better by increasing quality and
efficiency. In any service organization, the critical factors in
quality and efficiency are the flow of information and
interaction between people, especially interactions with
customers. Transforming the process of these flows will yield
quality results. At the heart of every service business are the
opinions, behaviors and decisions made by people. Analyzing and
modifying human performance in service environments is as
complex as any manufacturing situation. Six Sigma achieves
documented bottom-line strategic business results by initiating
an organization-wide culture shift.
The governmental institution must understand that it needs to
redesign its processes from the ground up to be as efficient as
Six Sigma enables. No more ?business as usual.? Until a process
focus?rather than a task focus?is developed, the scope and
endurance of improvements will be limited. Analyzing and
modifying human performance in these environments is complex,
but Six Sigma provides the tools and methodology required to
achieve significant long-term improvements.
Six Sigma will help government operations groups, such as public
works, law enforcement, and sanitation improve their processes
to deliver services more efficiently. It will help departments
that handle transactions, such as finance, libraries, and human
resources, improve their processes to reduce waste and save
money. It will help relationships with contractors and assure
that contractors apply best practices to their own programs. Six
Sigma will also instill a new attitude of efficiency and
responsibility from governmental employees. The
organization-wide culture shift comes from Six Sigma?s
recognition of meeting the needs of customers and the value of
lower-defect business processes.
Six Sigma is still new to government. Fort Wayne, Indiana may be
the first City in the country to implement Six Sigma. The City
of Fort Wayne is using Six Sigma to initiate improvements in a
number of different departments, including fire, community
development, water pollution control, right of way, human
resources, street, transportation engineering services and solid
waste. Six Sigma has decreased costs, improved customer service
and increased productivity throughout city government. Projects
have resulted in over $3 million of savings or cost avoidance
for the City.
The use of Six Sigma demonstrates a government?s commitment to
innovation and continuous improvement. Leaders in government
will find many benefits to adopting Six Sigma methodologies and
training their employees in Six Sigma.
About the author:
Peter Peterka is President of Six Sigma.us and
has over 15 years experience including implementation of Six Sigma in
Government with a variety of organizations. For additional
information please contact Peter Peterka at 6Sigma.us
|
