Government agencies around the world are under pressure to maintain or improve the level of service they provide to constituents, but with smaller budgets and workforces. The problem is not a new one—government agencies always seem to be fighting against funding shortages—but the recent financial crisis has significantly reduced tax revenue in many jurisdictions, making the need for efficiency all the more urgent. And while governments are seeking to maintain or even reduce spending to bring their public finances back into balance, they must also provide services that minimize the impact of the downturn on individuals, families, and businesses.
What we do
Operational improvements can help organizations create sustainable and substantial improvements in productivity. We bring proven techniques for eliminating waste, variability, and inflexibility in operations—such as lean and Six Sigma—to our work with government departments and agencies. Although many of these techniques were pioneered in the manufacturing industry, they have found ready application in public-sector agencies—from those with processes that resemble manufacturing (such as defense-related logistics units) to others where such techniques might seem less obviously relevant (such as policymaking bodies).
We have helped government institutions achieve results of similar magnitude to those achieved by private-sector institutions—productivity improvements of 30 to 100 percent. In so doing, our public-sector clients have simultaneously improved customer and employee satisfaction, and used the resources they saved to better fulfill their mission to the public.
Examples of our work
- We helped a defense ministry transform all aspects of its logistical operations by eliminating support activities that were irrelevant to the ministry’s end goals and improving the performance of supply chains and medical care.
- We supported a large postal operator in its efforts to reduce costs while maintaining high service levels and avoiding disruptions. We helped conduct a redesign of the sorting process and developed a performance-management system to support the new processes.
- We helped improve the business processes of a large regulatory agency that was facing a globalizing supply chain, increasing product complexity, public pressure for stronger risk management, and industry pressure for greater speed and transparency.
We have access to a wide range of proprietary research, tools, data, and approaches that have evolved from our extensive work in both the public and private sectors. We also have a global network of highly experienced practitioners who understand not only how to achieve world-class operations performance, but also how to achieve such performance in a public-sector context.