Governor Orders All State Agencies to ‘Lean’

03.27.2013
Issues & Policies

Any Connecticut state agency that has not yet begun to streamline its operations through such efficiency strategies as lean principles must now do so, according to a directive this week from Governor Malloy. 

Lean is a tool used widely in the private sector to create customer value while using the fewest resources possible. Companies employing lean are able to increase efficiency and remove waste by paring redundant layers of management, restructuring functions, and adopting new ways of budgeting.

Adoption of lean processes in state government, said the governor, “is one of the best ways we can continue to improve service delivery even in the face of a tough budget and a challenging economy.”

Connecticut’s business community has long encouraged state government to implement lean, and CBIA’s recent report on state spending (“Turning the Tide on State Spending”) and the association’s agenda for 2013 (“A Stronger, More Competitive Connecticut”) both specifically call for the adoption of lean techniques government-wide.

“The governor should be commended for his leadership in issuing the first call for statewide adoption of lean principles,” said CBIA Economist Pete Gioia.

Over the last two years, several state agencies, including the Department of Administrative Services (DAS), the Department of Transportation (DOT), the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), and the Office of Policy and Management (OPM), have started to implement lean and have seen both significant cost savings and reduced production time for certain processes.

DEEP, for example, has managed to reduce processing time for 12 of its permits by 74%, and the DOT has reduced the processing time for certain of its permits from more than a year to 60 days.

Economists predict that Connecticut’s economy will continue a slow recovery perhaps for years, and the state comptroller projects that the current-year state budget is out of balance by $131 million.

Reining in spending is fiscally necessary and critically important to giving businesses the confidence they need to invest and create more jobs in Connecticut. 

For more information, contact CBIA’s Pete Gioia at 860.244.1945 or pete.gioia@cbia.com. 

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