Program Helps Make State Government More User Friendly and Improve Business Climate
Sacramento, Calif. – Building on the Administration’s efforts to make state government more efficient, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) awarded 22 state officials across 10 state departments certificates of completion for the Lean 6-Sigma Green Belt projects which helps state government agencies be more business friendly by streamlining their individual processes.
The GO-Biz Lean 6-Sigma program has long been used by the world’s corporate leaders including Toyota, Motorola and General Electric to increase efficiency. In order to receive a certificate, participants must complete a real-life six-month project that demonstrates vastly improved efficiency within his or her department. Moreover, each participant completes the program having gained complex analytical and statistical skills that can help identify waste and inefficiencies within their respective organizations beyond this one project. The resulting improvements have a direct positive impact on governments’ interaction with the public by improving the customer service experience for businesses.
The graduation ceremony was hosted in the Governor’s Council Room and featured GO-Biz Director Panorea Avdis. “For years, the Lean 6-Sigma Green Belt program has helped departments and agencies streamline their processes across state government in order to better support our clients, the thousands of businesses across California,” said Director Avdis. “I congratulate all of this year’s Green Belt participants on their successful completion of the program, and look forward to helping other state agencies find even more efficiencies in the future.”
The state departments that participated in the program are:
- Department of Human Resources (CalHR)
- Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA)
- Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC)
- Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
- Employment Development Department (EDD)
- Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC)
- Department of Fish & Wildlife (CDFW)
- Fuels, Lubricants, and Automotive Products Program (FLAPP)
- Office of Emergency Management Services (Cal OES)
- Division of Correctional Health Care Services (DCHCS)
Visit Lean 6-Sigma for the complete list of graduates and information on projects.
Since 2014, GO-Biz has partnered with the Government Operations Agency (GovOps) to offer Lean 6-Sigma Training to state agencies to specifically address process-based issues within state departments that were causing delays in services to both internal and external stakeholders.
GovOps Secretary Marybel Batjer stated, “Congratulations to the graduates of the 2018 Green Belt class. You represent a growing movement of California public servants who are dedicated to improving performance to better serve California.”
Improved processes and efficiencies included an effort by California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to streamline its process for soliciting, reviewing, and ranking proposals for Federal State Wildlife Grant funds. Through the Lean 6-Sigma program, CDFW was able to successfully reduce time developing, reviewing, selecting, and submitting grant proposals from an average total processing time of 234 days to completing 95% within 60 days.
“Lean Six Sigma provided us an entirely new outlook on how project management should be approached,” stated project leader Nichole Eshelman, Regional Administrative Officer III with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “By applying the Lean Six Sigma methodology, we were able to obtain our objective and our State Wildlife Grant process is now more efficient, more cost effective, well controlled, and meets our total processing time goal of 60 days. The public will now have the benefit of a reliable and consistent annual process with set deadlines and clear roles and responsibilities. CDFW has already begun to utilize the Lean Six Sigma methodology to create efficiencies in other areas of the Department and we look forward to achieving a leaner and more streamlined Department overall.”
The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) utilized the Lean 6-Sigma program to reduce the time it took to complete the analysis to determine the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) document for each Permitting Decision while not affecting the quality of the analysis. In order to make the process more efficient, DTSC introduced a standardized Consultation Analysis with all of the critical personnel in attendance to conduct a detailed review of the project, analyze the environmental impacts related within CEQA, and determine the appropriate CEQA Document. As a result, early projections indicate the duration of time to make a CEQA Document Decision will decrease from an average of over 200 days to 1-4 hours.
“Our team did a great job to ensure that all of our improvements regarding our California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Document Determination project would be guided by our data while still maintaining the protectiveness set forth within CEQA,” said Hazardous Substances Engineer Shawn Browning. “I’m excited that the reduction in time to make these CEQA document determinations will allow our Permitting Division to make important permit decisions in a more timely fashion.”
About GO-Biz
The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) serves as the State of California’s leader for job growth and economic development efforts. GO-Biz offers a range of services to business owners including: attraction, retention and expansion services, site selection, permit streamlining, clearing of regulatory hurdles, small business assistance, international trade development, assistance with state government, and much more. For more information visit, www.business.ca.gov.
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