This document contains the text of the articles in the Summer 1995 ASQC Public Sector Network News. You can access past PSN News issues at: http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/pub/psci/psn/psnnews.html Visit the PSN Web site at: http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/pub/psci/psn/index.html The PSN began in 1987 as an informal network of state and local government employees. When we joined ASQC, in 1993, our membership had grown to over 1,300 people in State, Local and Federal government. Our mission: To help government leaders increase the capacity of the public sector to deliver services that delight the citizenry through accelerating the development, application and documentation of total quality management. To advance a systems approach to the public sector that will foster collaboration between federal, state, and local government. You can join the ASQC PSN by calling ASQC at (800) 248-1946 and telling them you want to join the Public Sector Network. Please forward any comments or questions on the electronic availability of PSN News to asqcpsn@aol.com (John Hunter, Secretary of the PSN). ------The Public Sector Network News-------Summer 1995------- 1) Focus on the Work: Pick Improvement Projects that Really Help your Agency's Operations Tim Fuller 2) But what do I work on? A. Keith Smith 3) Reshaping Government: A Case Study of the Office of Registrar General, Thunder Bay, Ontario Art Daniels 4) Quality in Government Andrea Lewis 5) California DMV: Improving the Sacramento Telephone Service Candy Wohlford 6) Quality in Cyberspace John Hunter 7) San Quentin Total Quality Team Tackles Furniture Defects Lisa Beutler 8) A Message from the Chair R. Barry Crook 9) Transforming Government- A Total Quality Improvement Initiative Russell Borkin Focus on the Work: Pick Improvement Projects that Really Help your Agency's Operations by Tim Fuller Some Tips for Consultants and Managers Who Want their Clients and Staff Members to Work on the Right Things Agency improvement efforts must be focused on making changes that will produce tangible benefits both to the agency and to the customers. In addition, these efforts must be carried out enthusiastically by people with the knowledge needed to succeed. Managers and consultants should guide process improvement teams to work on projects that will contribute to increasing output of goods and services that customers are willing to pay for or use right now. This objective can be achieved by following these steps: - Find the critical resource or leverage point that controls your department's capacity. - Decide what needs to be changed - Decide what to change to - Make the change This article offers advice on how to select the right area to work on, how to work through improvement steps, and advice for keeping the participants energized. HOW TO DECIDE WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED To find what needs to be changed, find the key leverage point or critical resource in your department. In many cases, the method to find this leverage point or resource is straightforward: we can just pick it! Here is how: First, list the major resources used to produce your product or service. From this list, determine which resource most fits these characteristics: 1. An expensive resource (A printing press in a printing department for instance) 2. A resource that takes a long time to acquire more of (An experienced accounting clerk) 3. A resource that directly adds to the value to your product or service (a driver's license examiner at the Department of Motor Vehicles) 4. A capacity-limiting resource that your customer would feel makes sense (Probably makes sense: "Sorry, all our examiners are fully booked, so we can't audit you for several weeks." Probably doesn't make sense: "Sorry, we can't schedule your audit for several weeks because the clerk that schedules examiner visits is on leave.") For example, take a doctor's office. Most office and clinics are organized around the doctor being the critical resource. The amount of revenue from patient consultations is directly dependent on the number and type of consultations performed by the doctor. In this system, the doctor is certainly the most expensive resource: it takes many years to train a new doctor to add capacity; the doctor is the primary value-adding resource, and it would make sense to new patients to say the doctor is fully booked and isn't taking new patients. Using the criteria given above, the doctor seems the logical choice for the critical resource if maximizing patient visits is your objective. WHAT SHOULD WE CHANGE? Use the Critical Resource to Control the Flow of Work Through Your Organization Now that you've decided what the critical resource in your department is, you need to change something to produce better results. The following sequence of steps should be followed: 1. Change something to make sure the critical resource is always busy. In the doctor's office, we should first look to see if the doctor is always busy consulting with patients during office hours. If the critical resource is idle part of the time AND there is work waiting in the system, we need to break the bottlenecks that are starving the critical resource so we got more output. Most clinics are organized to make sure there is a waiting room full of patients, and examining rooms full or fully prepped patients so that the doctor can move from patient to patient with no time being idle and little time doing overhead work. If there are patients in the clinic and the doctor can't find a patient to consult with, we need to find where the patients are waiting and change to a system to get them to the doctor faster. If there are no patients to work on, we need to change the service offering, the marketing, the pricing, or other variable to increase the number of patients or else have the doctor work less hours. The first step then, is to make sure the critical resource (the doctor) is busy working on the right stuff. 2. Change the system to reduce costs. The next step is to make sure work flows smoothly and quickly through the system, stopping only in front of the critical resource, minimizing the cost and use of capital, an providing a better experience to any customers who happen to be in the system. Ideally, the patients should flow through the clinic and be prepped and then wait only for the critical resource. How many prepped patients do we need waiting for the doctor to ensure the doctor is always busy? Only enough to handle the variation in consultation process time and patient arrival times to ensure the doctor doesn't run out of work. If we have too many patients waiting, we add complexity and costs to the system and make patients dissatisfied. One the patient completes a consultation with the critical resource, the patient should flow smoothly out of the system. 3. Change the system to raise throughput. Once patients are flowing through the clinic waiting ONLY for the doctor, what should we work on next? Can we find a way to increase the doctor's productivity by providing better tools, off-loading some simple tasks to doctors' aides, or helping the doctor keep up a good work pace? If the doctor can do more work and no new bottlenecks are created, the system throughput (number of patient consultations) increases. To summarize the steps above: - Identify a critical resource - Make sure the resource is busy - Break the bottlenecks in non-critical resources - Raise the capacity of the critical resource If your improvement projects are selected from an analysis of how work flows through your critical resource, you can be sure successful projects will benefit both your company's bottom line and your customer's perception of the value of your product or service. HOW DO WE GET KNOWLEDGEABLE PEOPLE WORKING ON THE OBJECTIVE WITH ENERGY? Now that we've selected an improvement that we know will help the organization, how do we staff the project with capable people who will supply enough energy to take the project to completion? Here are some guidelines to raise your chances for success: 1. Analyze your system and determine what needs to be changed using the steps above. For example, we decide that the doctor spends much time reading the patient history file before starting a consultation. 2. State the change objective clearly so you can determine the knowledge and skills required by team members to solve the problem. A clear objective also lets you know when you are done. For example: "Form a team to make it easier for the doctor to prepare for each patient consultation." 3. Put the right people on the team and build the team. Select people who understand the process and have the time to work on the project. The members selected must also have enough authority to carry out these solutions. In the doctor example, we may decide to have the receptionist, nurse, and doctor work together to solve the problem. We may want some help from a specialist to conduct team-building activities if team members have not worked together to achieve an objective before. 4. Provide support to the team. Supply a facilitator if the team members are not experienced in solving problems as a team. Train them to use any analytical tools that are necessary for solving the problem. Consider the impacts of the required changes on the people doing the work and take steps to ease the transition for them. In our doctor's example the need for outside help would probably be minimal since the group is self-contained and solving the stated problem should be straightforward. In a more complex system, special attention should be paid to support and transition issues. 5. Keep the team members motivated. Teach the team members about how work should flow through the organization and how their particular project will improve the flow. This doctor's team should understand the overall objective of providing the maximum number of effective consultations to patients and how helping the doctor prepare for each patient will increase throughout while raising the quality of the consultation and increasing patient satisfaction. Be sure the problem is challenging to the member but not overwhelming so they don't give up in frustration. Keep track of the team progress and encourage the team to keep working toward a solution. The doctor should give feedback to the other members of the team bout the effectiveness of changes that he been made. 6. Provide incentives to the organization for achieving the maximum throughput. In the doctor's office, the best solution is to have a busy doctor and patients that are always moving through the system. The re receptionist and nurse may be idle from time to time when there are no patients to work with and being idle occasionally is essential to maximize throughout. What incentive can we provide so that everyone will continue to run the system in the best way and continue to look for improvements? Being out of work temporarily may be uncomfortable to people, so we might want to provide interesting work for them to do when they have idle time. Education, skill development, and cross training may be good incentives to making running out of work a good idea. Once people get tuned into this new way of work, there are good reasons for everyone to improve the daily work. Profit sharing is an excellent way to share the gains from improvement work. 7. Eliminate barriers to working this new way. A policy of keeping the support people busy will work against this objective. Measuring the productivity of support people will work against this objective. A manager who frowns when support people are out of work will inhibit progress. Performance appraisals that stress individual achievement or rank employees against each other may work against improvement activities. SOME EXAMPLES 1. A printing company selected printing presses to be the critical resource. Projects were undertaken to raise capacity in the customer service, pre-press, and bindery departments to eliminate work in process except directly in front of the presses. Work was metered into the system to keep the backlog in front of the press at a manageable level. The result has been a reduction in cycle time, happier customers, less work in process and improved morale in some departments. More efforts are planned to reduce costs by taking advantage of improved productivity and to add throughout by improving press utilization. 2. In a law firm, the attorneys were selected as the critical resource. An investigation revealed that attorneys were idle for short periods of time due to these causes: a. Waiting for a client file to be delivered b. Waiting for a document to be typed and returned c. Idle because access to a computer network was blocked due to a system problem Several groups worked on projects to get the work flowing faster. A theme in two department was to get completely caught up at least once a day. In both departments, this new way of working has been difficult to achieve because some people feel management is asking the people to work harder and also some people don't see the logic of working very hard when work is in the shop to be done and then resting when there is no work - why not just work at a constant pace and let the backlog absorb the variation? 3. In a social science research facility, the manager was interested in applying these principles to the work of conducting large telephone surveys. However, it was difficult to find a critical resource since the work was routine and new telephone interviewers could be hired fairly quickly. The old way of conducting surveys was analyzed and it was noted that operators would call all cases (some surveys might have 20,000 people to call) and get interviews with the people that were home, then start working on the categories that were left until only very hard cases remained. This method cause problems because it was difficult to forecast the cost, completion rate, and completion date and management would have to wait until the survey was done to answer these questions. The manager came up with an innovative solution to create a critical resource and decided on "interview appointments." Cases were metered in just at the rate that appointments could be made and kept on a daily basis. This meant that a few hundred new cases would be started each day and an attempt was made to take this small group to completion rather than allow partially done cases to remain as work-in-process inventory. The results were very encouraging. The next two surveys were completed faster, required less manpower, and achieved higher than expected hit rates. Daily metering of cases also meant repetitive work cycles which were ideal for continuous improvement efforts. 4. A new project being undertaken in a software development company identifies the development engineers as the critical resource. Product marketing will supply a firm list of features to the development group to ensure engineers are always busy producing well specified products. An analysis of past projects showed long cycle times with much variability in completion dates and quality of the software. A proposed solution to this problem is to start with a stable system and have the whole team design, develop, and test one feature at a time, again setting up a repetitive work system that can be improved more quickly. In addition, some features may be ready earlier. The support group is working on improvements to raise their capacity so that installations, documentation, support call handling, can always be delivered at a rate to match what engineering puts out. SUMMARY Application of the techniques mentioned can be applied to a wide variety of work situations and often produces innovative solutions that won't be found by normal methods. Linear flowing manufacturing applications are relatively straightforward. Applications where the flow is not apparent require some creativity. People interested in improvements of this type are encouraged to c consult the references given below. In Summary: - Find the critical resource or leverage point than can increase your organization's capacity - Decide what needs to be changed - Decide what to change to - Make the change using an enthusiastic team References Fuller, F. Timothy. "Eliminating Complexity from Work: Improving Productivity by Enhancing Quality." National Productivity Review (Autumn 1985): 327-344. Gluckman, Perry and Diana Reynolds Roome. Everyday Heroes Los Altos, CA: Process Plus, 1989. Goldratt, Eliyahu M. The Goal. Croton-on Hudson, NY: North River Press, 1984. For more information contact: Tim Fuller Fuller Associates 424 Ferne Ave Palo Alto CA 94306 Phone (415) 493-4565 Fax: (415) 493-4688 E-mail timf7@aol.com But what do I work on? by A. Keith Smith I often close my presentations on improving Government quality and performance with an exhortation to "Just do something with what you have learned today." The key question is what to work on to transform or improve your operation. Too often, resources are wasted by working on improvements that are not valued by your customer, be they internal or external. Thus you must turn to your customer for the answer to the question. Ask the customer whether your service or product produces a valued outcome, and find out if that outcome meets your customers' expectations. Too often we focus our improvements and our measurements on process inputs such as staffing or budget, or on the outputs we produce, such as inspections or cases. We don't ask whether the inspections or cases actually produce measurable value for the customer. First establish that what you are doing actually produces significant benefit. If it does not, work on developing a service process or product that does. If the customer confirms the benefit of your service or product, then three areas are powerful avenues for improving customer satisfaction. These areas should also be the focus of additional measures to monitor improvements. - Improve quality, - Reduce cycle time - Decrease costs. Of the three, I have found that the study and reduction of cycle time can lead to dramatic insights about quality problems and about non-value added cost centers. So, the brief answer to the question "what do I work on?" is to work on those processes that provide a valued outcome for your customer and that working on cycle time reduction can be a powerful driver for improvements in quality and cost. For more information contact: A. Keith Smith Bureau of Automotive Repair 10240 Systems Parkway Sacramento, CA 95827 Phone (916) 255-1340 Reshaping Government: A Case Study of the Office of Registrar General, Thunder Bay, Ontario by Art Daniels The Office of Registrar General (ORG) has the responsibility for registering vital statistics for the Province of Ontario. The office has a dual purpose: the study of records and issuance of information from those records. It serves the interests of the general public as well as lawyers, clergy, physicians, coroners, funeral directors and federal, provincial and municipal officials. The general public is interested in records for personal identification, lawyers are interested in records for legal requirements, the medical profession is interested in records for statistical purposes and coroners and funeral directors require death certificates for burial. In February, 1987, it was announced that the ORG was one of several offices to be included in the Government's Northern Relocation Project. The primary aim of this initiative was to take advantage of modern communication technology to decentralize select operations from downtown Toronto to the north, to provide new public service opportunities for communities in Ontario's north. For some, success stems from opportunity realized. Changes at the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations served as impetus for an initiative demonstrating opportunity maximized. Moving the Office of the Registrar General (ORG) branch over 1000 kilometers north west to Thunder Bay allowed the Ministry opportunity to take full advantage of the (rare) change to plan, design, and implement a new operation from a clean slate. As a reengineering exercise, the challenge was formidable: planning was required for new location, new facilities, new work structure, new employees, and new technology. Management refused to defer to the path of least resistance - to merely transplanting the existing organization to the new location. The relocation of ORG to Thunder Bay was viewed as a greenfield opportunity to build a model office that incorporates state of the art technology as a tool for new service-oriented team representatives, working in an organization that acknowledges and promotes learning and diversity. IMPETUS FOR CHANGE The records held in the Registrar's office are among the oldest retained by the Province dating back as far as 1869 for birth registrations. This office has a long and sustained history of maintaining the integrity of vital event records with great surety and methodical care. This tradition of accuracy and methodical care for records also carried with it the liabilities of limited access and poor service orientation when measured against the consumer demands outlined in numerous public surveys taken in the mid 1980s. An organizational review revealed the Office of the Registrar General reflected a typical bureaucratic structure; where the layers of management are too deep (six layers from director to front line), functionality is too specialized (12 separate units), jobs are too detailed and responsibilities over-controlled (147 staff with 41 job descriptions reflecting 23 different job classifications). Service delivery times were reflective of the antiquated organizational structure and filing system, with customers required to make two visits over at least a three-day period to gain access to their records. Suffering from "acute paper burden" with approximately 20 million records on hand, work flow was cumbersome and a mailed-in request for a certificate would pass through six separate units before issuance. Communication between departments was restricted to chain-of-command routines, employee morale was low, turnover was high and service backlogs were persistent. THE ORG AS INNOVATION CASE STUDY The project's main innovation is a totally reshaped office that features recognition and integration of two systems of work; technical systems (capacity, layout, degree of automation of its physical equipment) and social systems (employee profile, organizational structure, communication networks, levels of responsibility/authority, supervisory roles and reward systems). INNOVATION FEATURES New Structure: - removal of two levels of management (reporting) hierarchy, four levels to two levels. - removal of 7 levels of clerical hierarchy - integration of 12 functional units into one multi-functional department. New Jobs: - one multiskilled generic clerical position -- that of team representative - seven Team Managers in one broad-banded, multi-functional department. New Culture: - outreach recruitment program utilized for hiring new staff - hiring diversified workforce reflective of the community it serves - continuous learning process integral to operations; knowledge acquisition key to advancement within the branch - egalitarian compensation and job design - philosophy statement employed as general guideline to Human resources policies - alternate work arrangements to accommodate individual employee needs, including regular part-time and flexible working hours. New Technology: - computer network terminals installed in workplace neighborhoods used as "shadow I/T partners" - image-enabled work stations providing the power to access, process, store and communicate knowledge - installed in concert with redesigned work flow to maximize sociotechnical fit. COMMUNITY AND INTER-GOVERNMENTAL PARTNERSHIP A major component of the overall plan to reshape ORG is Thunder Bay was to recruit a workforce that was reflective of local demographics . Ministry staff worked with an interagency group organized by the Community and Social Services ministry, representing people with disabilities, sole-support parents, native persons, visible minorities and francophones. Of the 110 new recruits to ORG, 60 percent came from these targeted groups. Fifty people were graduates of a training program the Ministry contracted from agencies sponsored by the federal CEIC department. In exchange for sponsoring six months training in life skills, computer skills and ORG operations, the federal government netted $1 million in reduced social assistance costs as individuals moved from welfare rolls to payrolls. RESULTS ACHIEVED TO DATE Productivity is up...production costs are down: The most recent Provincial Auditor's report revealed ORG had improved productivity rating by 55% over the 1991 low point. As well, salary costs per unit of output have decreased to pre relocation levels. New Technology...better service: This state-of-the-art document processing system offers, among other things, direct accommodation of special needs (e.g. computers that respond to voice commands to retrieve a file) for employees with restricted mobility. it provides an automated database around which employees interface according to both responsibility and capability. Auto-imaging has also improved service deliverables to our customers with direct on-line production of certificates in remote locations. For people who need a certificate "right now," in-person requests have service times measured in minutes versus days. Better, broader jobs in an egalitarian work environment: ORG has no entry level jobs that often serve as ghettos or repositories for the employment of the disadvantaged. Recognition and progression are on the basis of knowledge acquisition. Learning via job rotation is a requirement, not a perk. Rotation gives us a true circle. Besides the cycle of teaching and learning, in a circle organization, there is no place to hide. Standard hierarchies often appear like separate boxes or squares where poor performers or loners can keep low profile, but in a circle everyone must participate and contribute. There is no status differentiation between, for example, workers compiling stats, serving a customer or opening mail. There is no (costly and disruptive) competition "domino effect" when a senior vacancy occurs. Communication is paramount: at most, there is but one level of hierarchy between worker and branch director. "That's not my department" is being replaced by "How may I assist you." Work and family issues are acknowledged: there is on-site culturally sensitive day care, regular part time positions on each team, and flexible work hours available. Employment Equity is here! Sixty percent of the workforce are representatives of targeted groups under-represented elsewhere in the Ontario Public Service. OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE The Ontario Public Service made substantial financial investment in ORGs new technology: optical imaging has the capacity to integrate images, vice and data together at the desktop, the intention of the ORG re-design was to exploit this new technology to its maximum through substantial investment in its people. ORG as learning organization has mechanisms built into its structure to accommodate and take advantage of acquiring multiple skill sets. With movement toward generic positions and multi-skilled teams, the essential logic of Taylorism is shattered. Technology provides access and even expands what can be known as the newly available information extends beyond the boundaries of the conventional job description. For more information contact: Art Daniels, Assistant Deputy Minister, Business Division Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations 250 Yonge Street, 33rd Floor Toronto, Ontario M5B 2N5 Phone: (416) 326-8578 Fax: (416) 325-6192 Quality in Government Andrea Lewis CSG Survey Report The October 1994 State Trends & Forecasts, a report published by the Council of State Governments (COG), highlights the status of Total Quality Management (TQM) activities in state government in the United States. The report incorporates findings of a recent 50-state survey of quality management efforts in state government conducted by COG and the results of brainstorming sessions conducted with experts on state quality management efforts. The following are selected excerpts from this report. The TQM survey conducted by COG revealed that State TQM activities have been initiated for the following reasons (in order of the frequency of mention): 1. To reduce costs of management and delivery of state services ("to do more with less") 2. To use the talent of front-line employees in management and decision-making 3. To enhance images of the state or agency 4. To improve employee morale, skills and productivity 5. To change traditional management style (hierarchical, centralized, control-oriented, etc.) 6. To deal with complaints from customers (clients, constituents and other agency workers) 7. As part of strategic planning activities In addition, the report documents that the rapid increase in privatization activities in state agencies across the nation in recent years poses an added challenge to traditional management approaches. Unless a radically different management philosophy, like TQM, is introduced, the use of the private sector in management and service delivery in state government is likely to gain a more widespread acceptance in the near future, with all the uncertainties that accompany privatization. Can private TQM principles be successfully transferred to state agencies? Can state agencies adopt W. Edwards Deming's 14 points for management or those of other TQM gurus, such as Phil Crosby, Joseph M. Juran and Kaoru Ishikawa? Despite the obvious differences between the public and private sectors -- such as frequent turnover of elected and appointed state officials and lack of personal and financial rewards for management improvement in state government -- state TQM coordinators tend to believe that the quality management philosophy can be adopted in the public sector. According to the COG survey, TQM, either in pure or hybrid form, has been initiated in selected executive branch agencies in approximately 40 states. These states have initiated their TQM efforts under gubernatorial executive orders (13 states); agency head's directives without gubernatorial executive orders (11 states); special legislation (s states), or by other means (13 states, including agencies not under governor's direct jurisdiction). Implemented on either a mandatory or a voluntary basis, state TQM efforts bear a variety of names: quality management, quality partnership, quality leadership, quality service, quality initiative and quality through participation. All but two of the states that participated in the COG survey are using the term "quality" in their management improvement practices. The Label "Total Quality Management" is formally used in only three states. Most state quality management activities, by whatever name, contain the following eight elements (in order of the frequency of mention): 1. Greater efforts to satisfy customers (clients, constituent and workers in other agencies) 2. New leadership commitment toward achieving management excellence 3. Greater emphasis on employee empowerment and participation in decision-making 4. Greater emphasis on process, produce and service-measurement tools (data-based) 5. Streamlined work procedures (shorter chain of command, less paperwork, etc.) 6. Strategic, long-term plans to improve the quality of products or services 7. New organizational and work environment to improve employee morale 8. More flexible operational systems (personnel, purchasing, etc.) What is TQM? The following is a sample of definitions of TQM used in selected states. "TQM is process designed to give workers and managers the tools to improve the way the work and the power to make changes that will benefit the customers they serve." (Maine) "Quality through Participation (QtP) is a major initiative to implement TQM in New York State Government. ...QtPs goal is to improve the capacity of New York State Government to deliver quality services to the public by introducing the principles and methods of total quality management, and demonstrating that those principles and methods can be successfully adapted to the government context and result in more effective operations." (New York) "TQM is a philosophy that focuses on customer satisfaction, decisions based on data, employee involvement, reward and recognition, and continuous improvement." (Texas) For more information contact: Andrea Lewis, Assistant for Quality Programs California Environmental Protection Agency 555 Capital Mall, Suite 235 Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: (916) 324-7316 Fax: (916) 322-6005 California DMV: Improving the Sacramento Telephone Center Candy Wohlford BACKGROUND Telephone service centers are becoming a primary service delivery point for the Department of Motor Vehicles. Nearly 1 Million people a month use the telephone for their initial contact with the department. The Sacramento Telephone Service Center (STSC) provides centralized telephone services for customers calling regarding the processing of vehicle registration or driver's license transactions, office hours and locations, and to schedule appointments. The uniqueness of customer expectations in calling "headquarters," the need to improve service levels, and the desire to redirect additional telephone calls from surrounding field offices made the STSC a good choice for a TQM project. OBJECTIVES - Identify the specific circumstances and needs of a headquarters service center such as Sacramento's. - Develop guidelines for improving other phone centers in the DMV system. - Optimize the operations of the STSC. Specific target objectives were to identify the customer base and their expectations, define a realistic talk time, reduce customer hold time, increase the number of calls answered, and provide accurate information to the customer. THE PROCESS Extensive data gathering was done which resulted in creating a description of the initial system, establishing initial performance levels, identifying improvement opportunities, developing proposals, analyzing options, testing initial solutions, and implementing final recommendations. Members of the team visited other telephone service cents to observe operations and received consultation regarding phone center management from AT&T. Brainstorming sessions were held to identify areas that affected performance. Statistics in the areas of log-on time, talk time, hold time, available time, and work mix provided valuable information. The TQM team identified 28 potential areas for improvement and classified them into four major groups: - Supplier Issues: Improvements that could be made to the incoming work to reduce corrective action activities - Environment: Improvements focused on general policies and procedures - Process: Specific procedural enhancements in the contact between technician and customer - Customer Issues: Improvements focused on the accuracy and completeness of assistance RESULTS Significant results were attained in improving the operations of the STSC. Performance improvements occurred in the following areas" - Calls per technician increased by 47%. - Technician time without calls was reduced by 60%. - Technician non-productive time was reduced by 45%. - Customer wait times (time on hold) were reduced by an average of 40% during the seven worst time periods. As a result of these performance improvements, the STSC was able to assume the telephone calls of four additional field offices with no additions to staff. This has resulted in the redirection of 11 field staff from phones to other duties. The project also identified the unique conditions of the STSC and developed recommendations to meet Sacramento's particular needs. Guidelines were also developed for improving operations in other DMV telephone service centers. For more information contact: Candy Wohlford California Department of Motor Vehicles Field Operations Division 2014 1st Avenue Sacramento CA 95818 (916) 657-7023 or Bob Trioboli (916) 657-7457 Quality in Cyberspace John Hunter The World Wide Web is the newest source of on-line quality resources. The amount of information available over the WWW is exploding and so is its use. The WWW can be used by AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy subscribers and millions of others. It allows for "point and click" access to information. First you type in the address of the information you want (e.g. http://asqc.org) and information from that address appears on your screen. This information appears as text as well as graphics. Once connected you no longer have to use your keyboard--all you need is your mouse. If you are interested in a particular topic you just click on the highlighted words and the computer shows the information specific to that topic. Most web sites will list a number of related sites. So if one looks interesting you just select it and off you go on a new adventure. You can get up to date information as well as download text files of interest to you. You can access past Public Sector Network newsletters at the Clemson WWW site listed below (http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/pub/tqmbbs/govt/psnnews1.txt.) (for the next news http...psnnews2.txt. etc.) Let me know what sources you find useful and what topics to address in the future. A short list of resources follows: World Wide Web CLEMSON UNIVERSITY http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/ large site with over 600 text files (including old PSN newsletters), sections on the Community Quality Electronic Network and Deming Electronic Network. For the Public Sector Quality Improvement Page: http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/pub/psci/psn.html ASQC http://www.asqc.org for PSN: http://www.asqc.org/membinfo/division/psn.html Fedworld http://fedworld.gov NPR http://www.npr.gov The site for all the latest on the federal governments National Performance Review. Quality Wave http://www.creacon.com/Q4Q/ links to many sites. U.S. Department of Labor's Best Practices Clearinghouse http://athena.itl.saic.com:80/fed/uscompanies/labor/ Internet mailing lists include your full name and organization in each request to join a mailing list -- at the "" below. CHANGE initiating and sustaining major change write: majordomo@mindspring.com in body: info change DEN Deming Electronic Network write: den.list-request@deming.eng.clemson.edu in subject: subscribe This list focuses on discussion of the philosophy of Dr. Deming and the activity of the W. Edwards Deming institute. Management and Leadership in Government (not focused exclusively on Quality) write: listserv@list.nih.gov in body: sub govmanag "" This list focuses on management in government and addresses quality as one of the methods some of the participants use in their organizations. TQMEDU-L educational issues write: listserv@humber.bitnet in body: subscribe TQMEDU-L "" TQMLIB implementation in libraries write: listserv@cms.cc.wayne.edu in body: subscribe TQMLIB "" Please let me know of other resources. For a larger list: http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/pub/onlineq.html For more information contact: John Hunter U.S. Office of Personnel Management Mail Stop 102-268, 2200 Wilson Blvd Arlington, VA 22201 Phone: (703) 528-6786 ext. 6000 E-Mail: asqcpsn@aol.com http://pages.prodigy.com/VA/hunter/ San Quentin Total Quality Team Tackles Furniture Defects Lisa Beutler Quickly survey the standard state office: desks, chairs, bookcases, and with and luck, coat racks and credenzas. In California, chances are most of these were built by department of Corrections inmates, supervised by the Prison Industry Authority (PIA). And, chances are, a long-time state employee could probably tell a story about PIA products not meeting their needs. Well, the times are changing. Using a new and aggressive focus on customers, PIA recently introduced total quality methods to their manufacturing lines. Following is a process improvement story from the San Quentin Furniture Factory Quality Control Group. It summarizes a report prepared by the group recorder, an inmate. After discussion, the group decided to review and update the furniture factory's quality control procedures and to identify a continuous improvement project. The ultimate goal was to eliminate product liability risks and to provide improved satisfaction. The team included staff and inmates closely associated with the processes to solve furniture factory quality problems. The team began by examining the flow of components and subassemblies in the factory. Using a matrix chart and team expertise, the group identified chair boring operations as a critical quality input. Data collection identified glue joints and knots in the wood as significant defect areas. The team project focused on glue joint defects. PIA industrial supervisor Preston Carey, assisted by Intel Corporation statistician Dr. Neal Poulsen, identified appropriate statistical process control (SPC) methods to analyze various causes of defects. This resulted in a number of process improvements including: - Redesigning jigs for simultaneous cutting of top and bottom rails (to insure consistent fit) - Reworked chair specifications to utilize full-scale layouts (to reduce system error) - New marking and shaping jigs (to reduce system error) - Go/no go gauges to determine tolerances (to allow inmate employees to make accurate assessments) - Replacement of worn bits (to reduce variation in drilling) - And process improvements such as new jig setups, additions to equipment, and changes to routings The new setup also permitted more than one chair design to be cut from the same layout. The added machines allowed left and right side frames to be bored simultaneously as a matched pair. Prior to the project, the average glue joint defect rate was 32%. The rate has been reduced to just over 1%, resulting in improved quality and durability and less rework. Overall defects from all sources have also steadily declined, in part due to reduction of system variation. The group continues to use SPC on the line to identify other improvement opportunities. In addition to tackling problems caused by knots, the group is considering a number of future projects such as labor ticket reporting. In addition to obvious product benefits, the introduction of quality methods to prison factories has, for some inmates, produced lifelong opportunities. Several inmates indicate their new knowledge of systems, continuous improvement, and cause and effect, extends past potential employment after prison and into their personal lives. The next time someone says "we can't do that quality here," tell them the story of San Quentin state employees and inmates working in concert to improve quality. For more information contact: Lisa Beutler California Department of Corrections Phone: (916) 324-8565 Message from the Chair Barry Crook Some random notes from the Annual Quality Congress meeting in Cincinnati: Good news regarding the Quality Connection Database project! The business plan and budget variance request for $34,000 was approved by the General Technical Council; and the Society's Board of Directors were intrigued enough by our proposal to provide $50,000 in funding to the PSN for "strategic initiatives within the public sector", which may or may not include the Database effort. This means that we have to refine the business plan and bring it back to the ASQC Board in November for their final approval. It also indicates that the public sector is firmly in the plans of the Society for next year. We also met with Jon Brock, the Executive Director of the Secretary of Labor Task Force on Excellence in State and Local Government through Labor-Management Cooperation (quite a mouthful!) to discuss areas of common interest for collaboration. I met with Mr. Brock, along with Society leadership, to explore how the Task Force, the Society and the PSN could benefit from each other's work and how we could disseminate the findings of the Task Force. We will continue to talk with each other and try to formulate a proposal later in the year. I would welcome your ideas on the subject. One of the ideas we brainstormed about was to create a forum whereby practitioners, leaders and academics might discuss the notion of whether or not a model is emerging about how government is reformulating itself and how it is going about creating high performance organizations -- might benefit from such a dialogue. I personally would love to see Vice President Gore, Speaker Gingrich and our own, Tom Mosgaller, spend some time talking about this subject. Just how does the quality movement, reinvention, and the Contract with America relate to one another? We have finalized our strategic plan for the next two years and are in the process of finishing its documentation. Becky Meyers is working to complete this and should have it available for anyone who requests a copy by late July. We have assigned process owners for each of our four major objectives: (1) Membership Growth (Barry Crook), (2) Service Design and Development (Howard Schussler), (3) Competitive Advantage and Recognition (Rusty Borkin), (4) Organizational Capacity (Nathan Strong), and (5) Partnership and Collaboration (Carolyn Farquar). Each of these objectives has strategies and action plans that support their achievement. John Hunter is setting up a web-site for the PSN -- look for its announcement soon. We also took time to formally recognize the profound contribution to the formation and development of the Public Sector Network that our founding Presidents have made. We gave a memento of that appreciation to both Tom Mosgaller and to Michael Williamson. My thanks to Kim Peterson for taking care of those arrangements, and, of course, my hat is off to both Tom and Michael for the work they have done, and continue to do, on behalf of PSN. The next Council meeting is scheduled for September 8th and 9th here in Portland, Oregon. If anyone wants to attend the meeting, you are welcome to do so. Please let me know in advance (by mid-August) so that I can make sure we secure a room large enough for everyone. As part of our learning opportunity, I am going to ask some people who were instrumental in the development of the Oregon Benchmarks program to come discuss this effort with us. finally, I am on the internet if you want to communicate with me that way. The address is PSNChair@aol.com, or you can always call me at (503) 248-3575 at my office at Multnomah County. Transforming Government: A Quality Improvement Initiative Russell Borkin Government budgets have been cut or have barely increased in recent years. At the same time, demand for various publicly funded services has increased. Traditional management practices are the least effective way of dealing with such a rapidly changing environment and often result in conflicts among workers and management, and between government and the public. These conflicts ultimately reduce efficiency, raise costs, and produce dissatisfaction among government employees and the general public. During 1988 and 1989, the city of Milwaukee Assessor's Office was burdened with the highest number of public complaints in decades, low employee morale, and high turnover. In 1990, the office, with its 76 employees, made a complete break from traditional management practices and adopted a business philosophy that focuses on customer needs and teamwork. This philosophy stresses quality and value for customers and requires the intelligence, innovation, and commitment of all employees. It demands management practices that allow employees to be involved in decision-making and to use this knowledge of customers and the work to improve day-to-day operations and plan for the future. Such management practices are becoming common in the private sector, but have only recently been adopted by government. A labor/management steering team created with representation from all levels has been guiding the transformation. The team developed a quality improvement implementation plan, a strategic plan, and a process for annually updating the plan. Quality improvement team projects are selected from the strategic plan, and progress is monitored via an annually conducted organizational assessment. All employees in the department participated in formulating the department's vision, mission, and values statement. All had input in developing the strategic plan and received training so they understand and know the important role each plays in carrying out the plan. The department philosophy focuses on systems instead of individuals when trying to improve service. Systems are documented, studied, streamlined, or reinvented to provide the best service possible to customers. The department actively uses teams to study and improve work processes, Every function is critically evaluated against the department's mission. If a process is not part of the department of city's mission, it is eliminated. The Assessor's Office has developed its own internal trainers for such topics as New Roles for Leaders, Planning for Improvement, Team Dynamics, Facilitation Skills, Customer Surveys, and a Total Quality Improvement Overview. This eliminates the expense of bringing in outside trainers. The Assessor's Office quality initiative has been highly successful and has resulted in administrative savings of nearly $1 million since its inception. It has increased productivity and customer satisfaction, improved morale, and allowed the department to hold its budget constant while improving service. This has occurred in spite of escalating expenses for employee wages and benefits. Some of the more notable results of this program include: - Public Information Team-Developing and carrying out an extensive, ongoing public information program. Some of the activities include development of a taxpayer informational brochure in both English and Spanish; creation of an informational videotape used at meetings and shown on cable TV; working with neighborhood groups to educate the public on property assessments; providing all employees with public contact training; preparation of a public information manual for employees; formal training programs for policy-makers and the Board of Review; and formal procedures to ensure that the thousands of callers following a citywide reevaluation receive prompt answers to their questions. This team has been instrumental in successfully reducing the number of property assessment appeals from a high of 10,642 appeals in 1988 to a low of 4,218 appeals in 1994. This has resulted in a savings of nearly 33,687 direct labor hours and $684,000 in staff time since 1990. The work of this team was recognized by awards from both the Wisconsin Association of Assessing Officers and the International Association of Assessing Officers. - Privatizing Property Ownership Research. This innovation was the result of a team formed to look for efficiencies in performing property ownership research for other city departments. As the team studied this problem, it became clear that this function was not part of the department's mission and could be provided more efficiently by a private vendor. This innovation reduced the Assessor's Office budget by $339,000 per year and resulted in a net annual savings to the city of $149,000. This does not include the annual savings that resulted from streamlined operations in customer departments. All five employees affected by this innovation were retrained for better positions and absorbed into existing vacancies within the department. - Environmental Standards Team-Developing standards for the assessment of property with environmental contamination. An emerging problem in the assessment field is the valuation of properties affected by some form of environmental contamination. The Assessor's Office was one of the first in the country to confront this problem by developing standards to approach this complex issue in a uniform, systematic way. The development of this standard tapped the skills of a team of assessment supervisors and appraisers, an environmental engineer, and the International Association of Assessing Officers and has been used as a model by other states. - Telephone Team-Improving efficiency by improving service to business. The Assessor's Office receives nearly 600 telephone calls per day from various businesses that rely on property data to do their work. Prior to the initiative, the high volume of calls and the lack of staff to respond to the inquiries resulted in poor service to customers. The team surveyed its customers and learned that businesses were willing to purchase the data via CD-ROM or even computer printouts. By providing major users with alternative ways to get the information, response time for other customers was reduced by more that 20%. The beneficiaries of the innovation are all of the roughly 160,00 property owners in the city who now receive quality service at reduced costs, businesses who rely on data from the Assessor's Office, and other city departments that now receive better service. Providing high-quality service increases customer satisfaction, saves time, reduces costs, allows staff to devote themselves to work that adds value to Milwaukee, and allows employees to take Pride in their work. The biggest challenge is developing relationships between labor and management and maintaining effective communication with employees. Thus, the department has replaced employee performance appraisals with regular coaching sessions and has developed evaluation forms for employees to provide feedback to their supervisors. Also critical to success is the need to train both management and employees in their new roles. The city of Milwaukee training programs cited previously serve as a starting point. Customer knowledge is essential to successful implementation. The Assessor's Office acquires this information through surveys and from front-line workers. Another element vital to success is the ability to be honest about the mission of government and to streamline or eliminate services that can be provided more effectively and efficiently by private business. This innovation has been accomplished with no additional funding. The program has been funded by savings from the efficiencies it has created. Major savings in staff time due to the decrease in appeals has allowed the department for the first time ever to begin a regular program to inspect homes in the city. This increases the quality of the assessments and helps to further reduce assessment appeals and costs. For more information contact: Russell Borkin Quality Improvement Manager, City of Milwaukee Department of Employee Relations Room 706, City Hall 200 East Wells Street Milwaukee WI 53202-3554 Phone (414) 286-8154