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February 2016 //
Canadian Government Executive /
7
Management
All eight of these wastes contribute to
the government capacity crunch; in my
experience, three of these wastes seem to
consume noticeably more capacity than
the others: Defects, Overproduction, and
Excessive Processing. In this article, I will
look at examples of the waste of Defects,
and note some solutions to eliminate
them to free up capacity.
I helped a public servant from a Federal
agency use Lean to streamline her Travel
and Event (T&E) approval process. The
process was based on a Treasury Board di-
rective designed to promote the “effective,
efficient and economical use of public
resources” on travel and events. The Di-
rective required that a T&E request of be-
tween $ 5,000 and $ 25,000 be signed off by
one of two people: the Deputy Minister or
the Senior Departmental Manager. After
reviewing the process the team found that
the directive was successful in reducing
overall expenditures on travel and events,
but the effort spent creating, reviewing
and approving requests was higher than
ever before.
Mapping the process showed that T&E
requests were reviewed and adjusted six-
teen or more times before getting to the
DM who then asked for clarification or
requested changes on six out of ten re-
quests. In total, over 95% of requests were
returned or reworked at least once. The
total effort per typical request, including
clarifications, changes, error-fixing, review
and re-review, totalled over 40 hours. The
correspondingly lengthy approval process
could result in a $400 plane ticket becom-
Defects:
When
a piece of work
must be
corrected, or if
it is missing
information,
or requires
clarification.
D
efects
O
verproduction
W
aiting
N
ot Using Human
Talent
T
ransportation
I
nventory
M
otion
E
xcessive
Processing
When a piece of work must be corrected, or if it
is missing information, or requires clarification.
When work is passed on to the next step in
large volumes, then sits and waits, causing
overwhelm, while its data falls out of date and
must be updated.
When the file stops and waits to be addressed,
resulting in progress chasing calls.
When people have the capability to add more
value, but are not enabled to do so.
When the file has to be transported too far,
increasing waiting and follow up.
Piles of work accumulate, while the information
in the files ages, needs to be updated, and client
complaints must be answered.
When people have to move too much to do the
work.
When the process is too complex, has too many
steps, requires too much effort to complete the
work.