Iowa Business Council companies face intense marketplace competition, both domestically and overseas. The ever-present challenge is to find new ways to do more with increasingly precious resources while improving quality and service to customers.

LEAN ENTERPRISE

Successful businesses worldwide subscribe to the philosophy behind Lean Enterprise – the continuous critical evaluation and improvement of administrative and production methods.

The application of Lean principles:

• Allows for redeployment of scarce human and financial resources in the most efficient manner possible.
• Eliminates steps in processes that add no value to the end product.
• Leads to reduced costs, increased product quality, and happier employees.

The Council has been instrumental in transferring Lean business principles to sectors beyond manufacturing – including health care, state government, and academia.

Business efficiency experts assert that up to 35 percent of the average employee’s time is wasted on inefficient procedures. In health care, the number jumps to 60 percent.

HEALTH CARE LEAN

The Council has facilitated Lean “events” in several Iowa hospitals, leading to improvements in staff efficiency and patient wait times by 32-100 percent. So significant were these results that the health care industry has stepped forward to own the process and assume responsibility of further expanding Lean applications in health care facilities throughout Iowa.

GOVERNMENT LEAN

Recognizing that a competitive business environment means regulatory functions need to perform as efficiently as possible, the Council sought to institutionalize Lean in state government. Following Council-facilitated Lean events in targeted state agencies, delays in approval for various permits and certifications were reduced, often by 90 percent or more, without diminishing the actual time required for standard due-diligent review.

Acknowledging these dramatic results, the Iowa Legislature has now appropriated funds to create the Office of Lean Enterprise within the Iowa Department of Management that will coordinate future Lean activities within the executive branch. For more information about these initiatives visit http://lean.iowa.gov.

ACADEMIA LEAN

Higher education stands to benefit from increased administrative and programmatic efficiencies in much the same way as have Iowa’s hospitals and state government agencies.

Council member companies are assisting with the introduction of Lean on the campuses of the three Regent universities, expecting outcomes comparable to those realized with the Council’s efforts in Health Care Lean and Government Lean.