Wisconsin Continues to Lead in Lean Government

By Jon Miller Published on April 28th, 2007

We’ve written before about the support by the State of Wisconsin for Lean manufacturing efforts for companies in that state, as well as efforts to bring Lean practices into government itself. Lean manufacturing support by government, and for government, has a new champion on Wisconsin: Mary Burke, the Secretary of the Commerce Department.
She announced in May of 2006 a supplier development program for manufacturers in Wisconsin as a partnership betweenOEMs such as Deere & Company, Oshkosh Truck Corp and Harley-Davidson Motor Company as well as the Department of Commerce and local MEPs. The target was to help 100 small and mid-sized manufacturers become Lean. The results of the first year pilot were reported as lead time reduction of an average of 53%.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on April 28, 2007, Mary Burke’s budget proposal for the year doubles the amount spent on the MEP from $850,000 to $1.7 million. I have mixed feelings whenever more of my tax dollars go to MEPs, allowing them to more effectively compete with private sector companies like ours, by providing subsidized Lean manufacturing support to companies. But it’s hard to stay bothered for long when you hear about read news like this.
But the best part of all, according to the article:

Burke has led her department into doing 25 lean events as an example of lean in government. Fewer state workers are doing more work, she said.
We could use people like Mary Burke in government at all level, federal and local.

Jon Miller

Jon has dedicated his 25+ year career to the field of kaizen, continuous improvement, and lean management. Jon spent the first eighteen years of his life in Japan, then graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s in linguistics.

m.keating
November 30, 2007 - 11:49 am
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would like to get your views on lean government in public purchasing and other operations for an upcoming article. thx. mike keating, government product news magazine, http://www.govpro.com