Performance Improvement

KSRC’s comprehensive approach to improving performance in service organizations uses a lean lens to analyze and improve operational processes in ways that enhance and contribute to organizational effectiveness. The methods articulated in Improving Performance in Service Organizations: How to Implement a Lean Transformation (Lyceum Books, Inc. 2011), represent an innovative application of lean concepts and methods to the service sector.

Lean concepts and methods are a fundamental, yet rarely used, way to improve organizational performance in service organizations. Service organizations have yet to grasp the power of analyzing their processes using lean concepts and methods to identify and eliminate wasteful activities and unacceptable results. Applying this quality improvement methodology will lead to an optimization of your organizational performance and enable you to deliver exceptional service and products to your clients.

Improving Performance in Service Organizations: How to Implement a Lean Transformation (Lyceum Books, Inc. 2011), fills a gap in the literature and provides a way to translate lean concepts and methods in a way that makes sense to your organization. Our framework for applying lean recognizes the focus within the service sector on achieving a mission, which often is associated with positive outcomes for clients or an overarching societal good.

Moreover, the proposed lean transformation model for improving organizational performance offers you an innovative approach for analyzing your processes and identifying opportunities for substantial improvements with respect to:

• How long it takes to complete work.
• How many staff are required to complete a work process.
• How much time is spent doing rework.
• How many errors or defects occur in your services/products.
• How to balance labor in your work environment.
• How much time is spent waiting by clients and staff before work can proceed.
• How efficient and effective you are in your work.

Using a lean approach to analyze your operational processes, within the context of your organizational goals and mission, has the power to tap into the latent energy of personnel and release resources that are trapped in a viscous cycle of wasted work efforts. Furthermore, by applying lean concepts, methods, and tools, your service organization can build its capacity to achieve program goals and improve accountability for the funding you receive.

The benefits for your organization include:

• Promoting organizational learning throughout all levels of your organization.
• Building the internal capacity of your team members to analyze the design of your work processes, identify improvements, and prioritize their implementation.
• Empowering your staff and other stakeholders to implement process improvements in the short term and continuously over time.
• Focusing organizational efforts to meet client needs by establishing what is value-added from the perspective of your clients and stakeholders.
• Reducing the amount of process variation by standardizing your work processes.
• Improving your organization’s efficiency and effectiveness by reducing wasteful activities and eliminating unacceptable results due to the design of your processes.
• Enhancing the methods you use to assess processes and outcomes of program efforts on a continuous basis.