Something that should be obvious to many is that the US Government (or probably any government local or federal) is full of waste: processes are bloated, many workarounds, a lot of waiting – you get the picture. A natural antidote to such a state of affairs is the application of lean manufacturing or six sigma. But why hasn’t the United States Government, in wholesale, applied these process improvement approaches to itself yet?
We know the military has long been an advocate and has effectively applied lean to its operations, especially its supply chain and logistics operations. But other areas of government such as the Congress and the Senate and the other branches of “lean for office” type of government – not yet.
But, Presidential hopeful Ron Paul is making a strong case that the US Government needs to do just that in order to save itself from the debt ceiling crisis it’s currently facing:
Mon, 2011-07-25 10:53
Ames, IA”Today presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul signed grassroots organization Strong America Now’s pledge. He is the latest of five candidates who, by signing the pledge, have promised to tackle the debt and deficit by applying a waste-elimination process to the federal government.Strong America Now’s plan calls for every department, agency, and program in the federal government to go through the waste elimination process known as Lean Six Sigma. Mike George, the founder of Strong America Now, is the pioneer of Lean Six Sigma and has seen it reduce costs by at least 25 percent in every process in which it is applied.
By signing the pledge, Congressman Paul and the other presidential pledge signers are saying that they take our national debt very seriously, said George. They see that the Strong America Now plan can work, and they want to be a part of it.
Of course, signing a document doesn’t mean action will be taken. But now at least the approach of lean in improving our government is brought to awareness of high profile presidential candidates.
Now, I’m not a person that is too big on politics, but I think the government seriously needs some help. A high profile person like Ron Paul could help here, but people in government need to listen to him.
After the recent budget debates, it’s very clear to me that the Republicans and Democrats, the House, Senate and President are not interested in saving this country, let alone eliminating waste. The most serious form of waste in the government are the occupants of all three houses, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House. Unless and until these occupants are replaced by “real” representatives of the people, I am convinced that true and lasting change will happen. Believing that anyone in Washington is serious about fixing the issues facing this country is simply naive. Do we really believe that the people who caused the problem can actually fix them? The only way to fix our problems will be if we have a favorable outcome in 2012 with favorable being defined as an entirely different set of players. However, if anyone is serious about this, I am here to help.
Bob