LEAN/Six Sigma/Kaizen Survey Project Program

About the Program

Category: Human Services (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

The Hennepin County Human Services and Public Health Department’s (HSPHD) Corporate Compliance and Quality Assurance (CC-QA) area is tasked with capturing internal and external stakeholder feedback regarding the Department’s services and processes. The task is frequently accomplished through the use of surveys. Surveys are administered in-person, by phone, through the mail, and on-line. In 2007, approximately 5,000 surveys were processed. By 2010, approximately 10,000 in-person and mail survey forms were processed. In 2011, this number is anticipated to increase to over 60,000 survey forms. As a result, CC-QA initiated a Six Sigma process redesign project in 2007 and a Lean/Kaizen (Continuous Improvement – slow, incremental, but consistent) project during the fall of 2010. The goals for both efforts were to continue to increase capacity, improve the quality of data generated from the area’s survey process, and reduce waste in both time and materials. Improvement methodologies addressed all aspects of the survey process. These processes include survey inception, implementation, and data collection, processing, and reporting. Survey populations included direct service clients, contracted vendor clients, and department employees. The project teams consisted of a Six Sigma black belt, staff trained under the State of Minnesota’s LEAN Enterprise program and various knowledgeable experts. The new process design, being implemented in 2011, is capable of processing up to 800 double-sided survey forms per day, or approximately 200,000 survey forms annually, with a high level of accuracy. This capability represents a significant increase over the existing process, while simultaneously increasing overall accuracy.