Gov. Ricketts, Agencies Highlight Customer-Service Improvements

Press Release

Today, Governor Pete Ricketts and the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) highlighted initiatives led by the Center for Operational Excellence (COE) to make state government more effective and efficient. The Governor launched the COE earlier this year to lead initiatives aimed at improving customer service, a top priority of his administration. These initiatives have created significant new time savings, helped agencies refocus on customer service, increased surplus auctions, and improved agency work culture.

"Improving how we do business at the state not only improves customer service, but will also help Nebraska's job creators and taxpayers grow our communities," said Governor Ricketts. "The latest round of permitting and licensing improvements will enhance your customer experience at the State of Nebraska and show measurable results that benefit the taxpayer."

To achieve these results, the Department of Administrative Services' Center of Operational Excellence utilizes Lean Six Sigma methodologies. Lean Six Sigma is a methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste, combining Lean practices and Six Sigma to eliminate the eight kinds of waste: Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Not utilizing talent, Transport, Inventory, Motion, and Extra processing (abbreviated as "DOWNTIME'). In an effort to help build a culture throughout state government that values process improvement, COE has also created an in-house Lean Six Sigma certification program to provide training to over 14,000 State Employees for white, yellow, and green belt training.

Source