It’s been less than a year since newly installed El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez proposed a budget that, among other items, allocated $50,000 for Lean Six Sigma training.
Results are already being rendered, with $300,000 saved in the early stages. The successes are so promising that expanded Lean Six Sigma training is planned throughout all city departments to save even more.
Gonzalez, a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, joined El Paso from Irving, Texas, which is widely regarded for its strides using Lean. During his seven years there, Lean practices resulted in some $44 million in savings. And its program won the city a Malcolm A. Baldrige National Quality Award in 2013.
Now applying his learnings in El Paso, with his first, $826 million budget, Gonzalez made it clear from the outset that each city department was expected to cut its budget by 5 percent. And service level reductions were not allowed.
His Lean initiative enlists city employees (not high level managers) to work together in analyzing current workflows and identifying opportunities to be more efficient. City residents and regular service users have also been brought in to brainstorm solutions with city employees.
In an article in Efficient Gov, Gonzalez outlined two departments that have made significant strides in process improvement.
First, El Paso’s Parks and Recreation Department analyzed customer touch points and data processing requirements in seeking out opportunities to streamline the process for outdoor space permits. From a time span of 16 days and a cost of $214 per permit, the team identified enough opportunities for increased efficiencies to reduce permit processing to 30 minutes – and cutting costs to just $13. At the same time, customer interactions per transaction were reduced from 14 to 1, and annual savings rang up to over $32,000.
The positive customer feedback: Priceless.
Pothole repairs were the public works department’s focus. Examining the processes and how employees were being utilized led the team to develop consistent processes and improve overall operating procedures. The result was a 40% increase in the number of weekly repairs (from 200 to 280); a 14% reduction in program costs; a 24% jump in overall production. Another benefit was a 50% reduction in employee data management, even as data accuracy improved. Overall, $200,000 in annual savings is expected.
In reporting El Paso’s successes, Gonzalez noted: “When it comes to government efficiency, there are multitudes of skeptics and naysayers. However, streamlining operations, achieving cost savings and improving service are all within reach for any public-sector agency.”
