Reducting Building Safety Permitting Process with Lean Six Sigma

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Reducing Building Safety Permitting Process with Lean Six Sigma

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Client: City of Mesa, Arizona – Building Safety
Industry: Government
Service: Kaizen event

Challenge:

Stay competitive with other cities in Phoenix metropolitan area
Attract more commercial development
Improve building permitting process – Current time took three months on average after submitting an application
Overcomplicated formula contributed to 73% first-time error rate for calculating fees

Solutions:
Over a four-day Kaizen event, the multi-functional team:

Documented the process flow
Analyzed current performance data
Identified opportunities for improvement
Developed a new material flow
Conducted multiple pilot tests of the new process

Results:

Eliminated unnecessary and redundant activities reducing steps in permitting process from 59 down to 21
Reduced permitting time from 3 months to below 22 days
Cut the fee calculator error rate from 73% to below 12%

The City of Mesa’s population grew 37% from 1990 to 2000 and is projected to grow 30% over each of the next several decades. In order to attract more commercial development during this economic growth period, government leaders wanted to cut the time it took builders to obtain a building safety permit from the city. At the time it was taking an average of three months from the initial application to permit issuance, and there was a two-month backlog.

Government administrators first considered hiring additional people to handle the increasing volume and tackle the growing backlog. Budget constraints and the long lead-time required to train new employees forced them to look for alternatives to throwing more people at the problem. They eventually discovered and decided to apply the Guidon Lean Sigma Methodology to the building permitting process to identify and eliminate activities that add time and generate costs but don’t add value in the eyes of the customer.

As part of this methodology, they first pulled together a multifunctional team made up of representatives from different areas of city government, including commercial building permits, residential building permits, and field inspection. This team created a “process flow diagram” that reflected the actual path that a building permit traveled starting with the initial application. It included decision points and delay points, and helped everyone understand where they needed to focus their efforts.

Next, in order to maintain good service levels and minimize customer wait time, the team analyzed the incoming flow of applications. The team applied statistical and graphical tools to measure and analyze the number of incoming permits each day. The data showed that Monday through Thursday the Mesa commercial permitting department receives around 100 applications per day, falling to the 80’s on Friday.

Using the process flow diagram to guide their work, the Mesa team focused on a single process step where permits stalled anywhere from 15 to 50 days. They came up with more than 120 ideas on how to improve this particular step of the process. They analyzed each idea and grouped them by impact and effort, and eventually identified 17 high impact-low effort changes.

Incorporating these 17 changes and others, the team redesigned the building permit flow and pilot tested the new process. These initial pilots achieved significant reductions in process time by eliminating unnecessary activity, such as transporting building plans from one building to the other to get a signature.

To date feedback on the process changes from the Mesa Building Department’s customers has been highly positive. Now they can spend less time in city offices trying to get permits, and more time searching for the next development opportunity.