There is a saying, "You can't fight city hall" which means that it is foolish to challenge the establishment or to fight against overwhelming odds. So it is always very encouraging when we are invited to teach kaizen to a group of people from local government. The Rotorua District Council in New Zealand is proving that city hall can and will fight waste on behalf of its citizens.

The Rotorua District Council serves a population of 60,000 people on the North Island of New Zealand. As a pilot on their journey to becoming a "Lean Council", Rotorua selected the Land Information Memorandum (LIM) process. The LIM is an information package people request from the city regarding real estate, and everyone agreed the process was not smooth.

A group of 15 Council members studied kaizen principles hands-on, learning through simulations and exercises. This was followed by "going to gemba" or visiting the actual workplace to learn from people who worked in the LIM process every day. This required nearly 1km of walking and 2 hours to see each function involved in the LIM process.

Grasping the basics of the workflow, the team systematically mapped the process from request through to delivery of the LIM package. The team learned that the current process lead-time was 7 days, most of it waiting time with only 3 hours of actual hands-on processing time. The kaizen team members designed a simpler, more effective process and presented it their colleagues for input. As a result, the new process was able to deliver the LIM in 3 days with only 2.25 hours of processing time.

The best part of the experience, according to participants, was that it allowed them to see many other opportunities within their work.