Growing success with Lean practices

Government agencies in Bangladesh are taking advantage of the Japanese concept of Kaizen to improve the quality of services by civil servants and other activities in the region.

Since the Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC) integrated Kaizen and total quality management (TQM) five years ago, there have been several notable changes in the way the agency operates. This is particularly the case in regard to agriculture – for example, land mutation time was reduced to 25 days from three months. Additionally, the BPATC has been able to enhance the rate of hygienic latrine use to 70 percent from 30 percent since the program was implemented in the sub-districts of Bangladesh.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which helped the BPATC to integrate TQM and its other continuous improvement programs, added that the improvements occurred “not because of any additional fund and top-down initiative, but because of … officials' initiative and innovation,” as quoted by BDNews 24.

Civil servants at a district (or upazila) level who were trained in Kaizen are expected to deliver better quality service in a faster time span and hope to help develop other local continuous improvement initiatives over the course of the upcoming years.

Cabinet Secretary Mosharraf Houssain Bhuiyan applauded the Lean initiative at a conference last week. He plans to help further develop the program and play a coordinating role to upscale the project. Bhuiyan believes TQM can reform government organizations at the micro level, which can then impact other parts of public services at a higher level.

“JICA will always be engaged with Bangladesh in its endeavor for improving public services,” added Takao Toda, the chief representative of JICA.

Government Kaizen in the United States
The government of Bangladesh isn't the only federal agency making use of Kaizen. Several state governments in the United States have also utilized Lean methodologies to streamline operations. For example, some Departments of Motor Vehicles have used Kaizen to cut the number of steps involved with applying for permits, while others have leveraged these practices to expedite service.

Organizations should go into their Kaizen transformations with an open mind. Although it may not be immediately apparent how companies can utilize Lean concepts, there may be some opportunities that open up the more these mindsets and philosophies are internalized.