Our acquisitions and processing of materials had not undergone serious review in a number of years, and we are facing significant staffing budget cuts of 28%. Efficiencies in staff time are needed to be found to be able to reassign staff to critical public service areas. Having some experience with LEAN process review, we are confident the review would help us identify some non-value-added activities in the process, and we would be able to glean some staff time-savings. While the perception is that materials get to the customer (branches and main library for circulation) “as fast as possible”, a quick time-check of materials showed a broad range of time moving through the process from a week to four months. Our goal is to have all materials out to the customers in no more than a week, and in the case of pre-processed materials, a 48-hr turnaround is a likely possibility

Following the LEAN principles of analysis, the entire process from intake through the door to output is being measured, broken down and examined for the “seven wastes” of non value-added activity. When reassembled into a LEAN process, materials will arrive in the unit and be out the door in 48 hrs to no longer than a week (for the more complex processed items).

The LEAN facilitation team has been meeting, studying, analyzing and developing possible models for 1 ½ months, and is close to synthesizing the work to two potential models which will be costed and analyzed for effectiveness. Final selection of the model and implementation should happen by the end of FY 10-11.