Kenya public sector must deliver quality services to citizens

Baringo county executive in charge of health services Moses Atuko (left) addresses workers from Kabarnet District Hospital who stormed the county headquarters on Wednesday complaining about unclear deductions in their January payslips. Photo/Wycliff Kipsang 

By Joseph Muga
inShare

In recent years, governments and municipalities all over the world have begun using new management techniques to improve service delivery to citizens, reduce errors, excessive cycle times, inefficient processes and cost overruns related to public sector projects.

Whether you are in the public or private sector, the issue of service and customer satisfaction reigns supreme. There is no excuse for over-bureaucracy, waste and poor performance.

Many have used the Lean Six Sigma methodology; an approach focused on customer service through quality improvement, reduction of variation and cycle time, as well as elimination of waste.

Lean Six Sigma is a systematic, data driven, customer-centric strategy for process improvement. It is based on the concept of combining two improvement programmes, Six Sigma and Lean Enterprise.

Six Sigma is both a quality management philosophy and a methodology that focuses on reducing variation, measuring defects and improving the quality of products, processes and services.

The concept was developed in the early 1980s at the Motorola Corporation and was popularised by General Electric and its former CEO Jack Welch.

Lean Enterprise is a methodology that focuses on reducing cycle time and waste in processes. It originated from Henry Ford and was perfected by Toyota Motor Corporation as the Toyota Production System and increased in popularity after the 1973 global energy crisis.

The term Lean Thinking was coined by James Womack and Daniel Jones in their book by the same title. The term Lean Enterprise is used to broaden the scope of Lean Programmes from manufacturing to embrace the enterprise or entire organisation.

Lean Six Sigma uses a structured approach to solving problems using the DMAIC cycle:

• Define — Define six sigma projects to resolve operational issues.

• Measure — Measure performance of the processes and the Lean Six Sigma project.

• Analyse — Analyse project performance in relation to operational goals.

• Improve — Improve Lean Six Sigma business process performance.

• Control — Control inputs to the project management system to ensure sustainability of Lean Six Sigma.

Although most of Lean Six Sigma implementation has been in the private sector, mostly in the manufacturing industry, it is now a common approach in non-manufacturing, service and the public sector.