Washington's Lean Program Saves Millions

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SAN FRANCISCO — Washington has saved millions of dollars by implementing its Performance Management Program across the state, according to a recent report from Gov. Jay Inslee.

The report details examples of 18 improvement projects at 15 state agencies. These projects resulted in $5.92 million in savings, $27.4 million in costs avoided, and $3.16 million in additional revenue in fiscal year 2013.

In addition to the 18 improvement projects listed in the report, hundreds of other smaller improvements have also been implemented. From 2012 to date, agencies have completed more than 600 of these projects, the report said.

"We're using proven private-sector principles to make state government better," Inslee said in a statement. "These changes are improving customer service, saving money and helping agencies handle growing workloads with existing resources."

Inslee launched the initiative, called "Results Washington," in 2013 as a way to expand the state's "Lean Initiative" and measure and improve performance and accountability of state agencies.

In the past two years, more than 75% of state agencies have launched Lean improvement projects.

For example, the Department of Enterprise Services expects to avoid $8 million in additional lease costs for state facilities over the next five years by eliminating a backlog of lease renewals and improving how it uses market data.

Employees at the Consolidated Technology Services helped convert the state's 30-year-old long-distance phone network to a new service, saving $2 million a year, and the Office of Administrative Hearings built a faster, reliable case management system, instead of spending $150,000 to buy a replacement.

"It's still early in this effort, but we're encouraged by the progress we've seen so far," said Wendy Korthuis-Smith, director of Results Washington. "Lean management is all about customer-focused continual improvement. That's the workplace culture we're trying to build."

In all, Inslee said the state's performance management efforts significantly exceeded the state costs of running Results Washington, which totals $1.8 million annually.

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