Only 8 percent of government workers say the U.S. federal government is running very efficiently, according to a survey conducted by ASQ — the leading global authority on quality. According to the report, the most likely causes of this sustained inefficiency are a failure to engage front-line workers when engaging quality processes, inability to engage elected leadership in goal-setting as well as overcomplicating procedures that agencies must follow.

The survey included government workers from a diverse range of public sectors including defense, health care, military, transportation, finance and agriculture. Respondents said the following areas of federal government could use increased attention to quality and efficiency. Over 58 percent ranked infrastructure as the area where federal government could most benefit from reducing waste and cutting costs followed closely by Health and Human Services at 55 percent.

ASQ survey respondents also indicated some key challenges that need to be addressed before long-term positive change can happen. Thirty-one percent of those surveyed said the biggest challenge to implementing quality improvement methods in the federal government is the shifting of strategies, goals, and priorities.

Other challenges noted in the research include organizational fears about the impact that cost-cutting will have on jobs and project funding as well as a lack of awareness about quality methods and their benefits, and the view that quality improvement is a temporary trend.

Several quality improvement methods were called out in the survey as having the biggest potential for reducing federal waste. Seventy-six percent of respondents said Lean would provide the greatest benefit to increasing efficiency, followed by Lean Six Sigma at 71 percent and Six Sigma at 48 percent. Other quality methods mentioned by those surveyed include ISO (33 percent) and Total Quality Management (28 percent).

Evidence of quality‘s positive impact can be found in the partnership of Army mechanics at Fort Campbell a U.S. base in Kentucky and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) contractors who need to maintain the Army’s automotive equipment to ensure it is ‘mission capable’ when needed. While the Army mechanics were following maintenance standards for their vehicle inventory, the standards left room for interpretation. That led to multiple inspectors reviewing equipment resulting in excessive parts and labor costs. A quality management team used customer comments from the soldiers, real-time inspection and repair data, measurement system analysis (MSA), and design of experiment (DoE), to identify the extent of inspector variance. Once that was determined, DMAIC methodology of Lean Six Sigma was used to reduce inspector variance, increase accuracy, and save money.1

Here are a few first steps that government organizations can take to ensure a successful outcome with their quality improvement initiatives:

  • Generate a stronger commitment to continuous improvement initiatives from management/leaders by building a case for quality looking closely at outcomes such as higher quality of service delivery, increased readiness, or improved employee morale.
  • Require the use of quality practices in ongoing management, and for all managers. This can be done through required use of the Auditable Quality Standards, and an organizational scorecard showing results, or through the use of other recognized quality frameworks, such as the Baldrige Excellence Framework.
  • Create a culture that is supportive of quality and fact-based management and motivate your team to deliver quality success. Provide staff with measurable results which have been assigned to each key process so the team knows how close they are to success.

While federal government professionals face a variety of challenges on the road to more efficiency and profitability, incorporating these steps into your continuous improvement process may make the journey to an improved bottom line just a little smoother.

Mark Abrams is a senior business process improvement manager at Akamai Technologies and chair of ASQ’s government division. He is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with 14 years of process improvement experience in various areas including: Financial Services, HR/Payroll, Clean Room Manufacturing, Laboratories, Insurance and IT.

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