by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
“Doing more with less.”
That’s become the mantra of business lately as companies and organizations devise ways to remain profitable in a depressed economy.
Another mantra that’s becoming part of the American business tool kit is “Lean.” Originally developed by Toyota as a way to improve the quality of the Japanese manufacturer’s vehicles while reducing production costs, the concepts can be adapted to improve any business or organization. The basic idea is to involve everyone — from the CEO all the way down — in an effort to identify the best way to perform any process.
Four years ago, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office became the first law enforcement agency in America to embrace the Lean concept. Since then it has developed into part of the JSO’s culture. More than 1,700 sworn officers and 800 civilian employees live it every day.
Sheriff John Rutherford, who brought the Lean concept to the JSO soon after he was elected, said it’s part of a two-part management philosophy.
“The first step is to cut out the fat and eliminate things that don’t add value,” he said. “After the best processes are in place, then make sure the best people are in place. That contributes to morale because people buy in to the process and that empowers them.”
Rutherford also said using Lean practices has allowed JSO to cut nearly $30 million out of its budget and save money.
“It has allowed us to avoid spending many millions more,” he said. “The sheriff’s office is a big business and we need to run it like one.”
He gave as an example a Lean process that helped alleviate a situation at the Pretrial Detention Facility. Hundreds of inmates were sleeping in common areas because there weren’t enough bunks in the cells. That created a safety issue for Corrections Officers and inmates. One solution was to build a $32 million, 686-bed addition at the Montgomery Correction Center. Obviously that wasn’t an option, Rutherford said, so the Lean process was put into motion.
“We found a way to add more than 800 beds at the jail and we spent just $110,000 to do it,” said Rutherford. “The metal shop at the prison farm fabricated parts to add one bed to each two-bunk cell and the inmates painted and installed the beds.”
Lt. John Lamb is the commanding officer of the JSO Continuous Improvement Unit.
“This program is not about force reduction, it’s about providing the best value for the investment,” said Lamb.
He said the way the Lean process begins is by asking a simple question: “Why?” Applying that inquiry can often lead to significant improvements like it did when JSO analyzed the procedure it’s using to transfer data and documents from the Clerk of the Court’s office.
“They send us data electronically,” said Lamb. “When it arrived here we’d convert it into paper documents that were then entered into our computer system manually. That led to developing a system to make the clerk’s electronic data compatible with our system which will allow us to reassign four of the six clerks who used to enter the data to other departments.”
Another example was the JSO’s Fugitive Unit. Its responsibility is inmate and fugitive transfers statewide as well as national extraditions. JSO Corrections also has a team of officers dedicated to similar functions who make daily trips to court and local and state medical facilities and conduct statewide jail and prison transfers.
After the decision was made to transfer the Fugitive Unit’s responsibility to the Corrections department, Lamb said the end result was a more efficient process that also resulted in nine sworn detectives being relieved of their transportation duties and resuming their full time investigative responsibilities.
Other processes that have been improved through the Lean evaluation process are the JSO’s payroll system, the flow of documents involved when a vehicle is towed and even the protocol for replacing police officer’s uniforms.
“Your shoe size doesn’t change but we used to require officers to try on new shoes when it was time for them to be replaced,” said Lamb.
The bottom line is improving efficiency and making the best use of resources is allowing JSO to provide a high level of public safety to the community while keeping its budget under control, said Chief of Continuous Improvement Adam Brown. By improving efficiency and eliminating waste, manpower and dollars can be better utilized and that limits escalation of costs.
“As a police officer I like knowing the JSO is functioning as efficiently as possible. Cops pay taxes too,” he added.
Joe Rizzo is executive director of the Jacksonville Lean Consortium. The organization was founded five years ago and has 46 member companies and organizations including local manufacturers, JEA, JTA and the City of Jacksonville. The consortium helps its members create the Lean culture by training people to train other people in the concept. Annual membership fees range from $1,000 for a business with 15 or fewer employees to $8,000 for companies with 500 or more employees. Rizzo said the return on investment reported by members is between 20:1 and 100:1.
“Most companies are too busy fighting fires. It’s important to be able to step back and take a look at how you’re doing things,” he added.
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