LEAN Update

From Kim Harkness, Human Resources:

Keene State College began its LEAN efforts in January 2016 in collaboration with the New Hampshire Bureau of Education and Training, providing an on-campus learning experience using classroom activities and mock LEAN events. And new Intro programs are growing our capacity to leverage LEAN process improvement strategies in response to our Strategic Plan Goal #3: Institutional Sustainability and Resiliency. LEAN is a systematic approach to identifying waste and improving processes. While its roots were in Japanese car manufacturing, the principles have been adapted to serve the needs of the public service sector such as state agencies and public colleges. KSC LEAN emphasizes each employee’s fiduciary responsibility to manage College resources, honoring the campus commitment to sustainability and demonstrating exemplary stewardship. Current KSC LEAN projects include streamlining employee overnight travel processing, revising the student withdrawal process, expediting gift processing and acknowledgments, and improving waste management/recycling request fulfillment.

By the end of the year, Keene State anticipates having ten in-house LEAN facilitators to aid departments across campus in re-thinking processes and protocols and encouraging efficiency and standardization, realizing both savings and quality gains. KSC will be supporting three staff - Michelle Fuller, Jen Drake-Deese, and Joshua Jarvis - as they work toward their LEAN Black Belt certification this year, as well as Cindy Krautwurst and Sheila Kirby who will participate in Green Belt Training in late October. Their participation is funded by a grant received by President Huot from the Davis Educational Foundation. In all, over fifty KSC staff have participated in the various levels of LEAN training so far. Additional sections of “Intro to LEAN” are available in November and March. For more information or to register, visit www.keene.edu/office/itg/training/.