The Hindu Business Line : ‘Lean’ governance

For those who have to transact with other countries, the good news is that the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has opened a branch in Chennai with the promise of more passport offices in other towns. The bad news can only be experienced by actually applying to the passport office for any of the services offered. On any day, the queue is serpentine and there is a possibility that the applicant, after being in the queue from as early as six in the morning and under adve rse conditions, may be told at noon about some deficiency in the document. The only consolation is that this state of affairs is not peculiar to the passport office alone.

The reasons are many. First, nobody in government looks at the design of the processes involved in, say, processing passport applications, from the citizen’s point of view. The whole attempt is to stick to the letter of the law and avoid mistakes. Second, for most services, the government is the sole provider. Since there is no competition, the citizen has no other option but to grin and put up with indignities. Third, there is no frontline empowerment and the system is bound in hierarchical red tape. Fourth, unlike in manufacturing assembly lines using lean systems, there is no inclination to improve the processes constantly by identifying the problems and resolving them. And, finally, even management pundits have not so far come up with the definition of ‘value for customer’ in cases where citizens are to be served to comply with regulations.

Lean Systems of Production was pioneered by Toyota to optimise costs, quality and customer service constantly and is today embraced by every manufacturer worth the name. The mantra of lean systems is simple and universal and not restricted to production alone — it is about minimising losses caused by waste, variability and inflexibility, to achieve a smooth process flow. It is perhaps good to emulate what Governments who may put the concerns of the citizens above the self-importance of their officers do.

The UK and Japan, steeped in the culture of manufacturing, are increasingly turning to revamp and redesign their services for their citizens. It is reported that in a UK government office processing volumes of standard documents, lean techniques achieved double-digit productivity gains in the number of documents processed per hour and improved citizen service by slashing lead times to fewer than 12 days, from about 40, thus eliminating backlogs. The proportion of documents processed correctly the first time increased by roughly 30 per cent; lead times to process incoming mail decreased to two days, from 15.

Many public services such as military logistics, employment agencies, social-security benefits, airport security checks have been identified as processes that lend themselves to efficiency and quality improvements by applying lean techniques. In fact, lean processes can work wherever a process can be defined at the operational level, including legal cases, where the system has never been looked at from the point of view of the accused.

(The author is former Member, Ordnance Factories.)

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