HomeMy WebLinkAbout12/09/2025 13.C. City of Yakima Lean Projects Summary •
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BUSINESS OF THE CITY COUNCIL
YAKIMA, WASHINGTON
AGENDA STATEMENT
Item No. 13.C.
For Meeting of: December 9, 2025
ITEM TITLE: City of Yakima Lean Projects Summary
SUBMITTED BY: Randy Beehler, Communications & Public Affairs
SUMMARY EXPLANATION:
In the last few years, various City divisions and departments have worked with the Washington State
Auditor's Center for Government Innovation to improve operations using the Lean process. A summary
of that work prepared by Center for Government Innovation staff is attached.
ITEM BUDGETED: N/A
STRATEGIC PRIORITY 24-25: A Resilient Yakima
RECOMMENDATION: N/A
ATTACHMENTS:
City of Yakima Lean Projects Summary.docx
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Summary of Lean project work with the City of Yakima
June 2017 — Cliff Moore, City Manager, was interested in looking at their IT Department.
We held a planning meeting that included the interim ITS Director, John Carney. They
wanted to look at where the department should draw the line on
centralized/decentralized services. Then they could create an appropriate management
strategy for services to over 20,000 clients and the best approach for the services.
This project did not move forward due to changes in leadership. They had hired Ana
Chavez as the new Assistant City Manager and she was a certified Black Belt for
Lean/Six Sigma, so they wanted to wait and see if her expertise would benefit them.
October 2019 — Kimberly Domine', Financial Services Manager, was interested in
looking at the Purchase Card Reconciliation Process following the completion of their
audit (which did NOT result in a finding but was a suggested area for improvement).
The main area of concern was that they were paying their statements before they were
fully reconciled. To receive the rebate, they have to pay statements on time but with
over 200 purchase card holders, with one person to review the reconciliations, they
were finding that to be an impossible task.
This project resulted in six proposals for areas of improvement. Debra Hentz sent a
letter to Kimberly to provide a summary of those proposals (which I am attaching with
this document for reference). We do not typically send these letters but are happy to
create them upon request. Our first follow-up meeting with the team, which took place
on 2/20/20 showed they had made amazing progress with their proposals. Our next
follow-up meeting was delayed to 9/30/20 due to Covid. Again, there was still amazing
progress in tracking metrics and the team staying on task, while shifting to a
telework/hybrid work environment. We had a final follow-up meeting with them on
1/26/21 which showed continued momentum in the proposals, and we felt we were
ready to close the project notes, knowing they can reach out at any time with questions
or request for additional assistance. I am happy to share the follow-up proposal notes
upon request.
February 2021 — Jenn Zeutenhorst, Sr. Training Program Coordinator, reached out
upon request from Bob Harrison, City Manager. The previous City Manager had been
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there for over thirty years and there had been significant changes in council structure
and high-level turnover. Bob had a different take on how leadership should work and is
working to break down organizational silos. After providing an overview of our services
for Jenn to share with Bob, it was left to them to reach out when ready to move forward.
This was delayed a bit due to their being in active audit. Jenn touched base with us in
June, and we coordinated a two-hour Lean Leadership training to take place on 7/21/21.
Overall, the training was well received. The group was very quiet and expressed they
were all still processing what they learned from the "5 Dysfunctions of a Team"
assessment they did at a retreat earlier in the year. The HR Manager shared that they
were all extremely "conflict adverse" and therefore were not open with each other.
Debra shifted her approach with the training and shared a lot of Lean stories from other
organizations which helped the team to become more relaxed, though still not sharing
much. Kimberly shared the work they did on the Purchase Card Reconciliation as well.
July 2021 — Scott Schafer, Public Works Director, reached out following the Leadership
Training. After hearing about the Purchase card project, Scott was interested in looking
at Permitting processes that included Engineering, Planning and Codes. He believes
the current process is satisfactory for the external customers but knows the internal
process can be streamlined with added checks and balances. One of the major
challenges is that Engineering resides under Public Works, rather than Planning and
Codes. After the planning meeting with Scott, Joan Davenport, Community
Development Director, and Bill Preston, City Engineer, we learned that Bill is the energy
behind the Lean request, but Scott is fully supportive after what he learned at the
Leadership training. The meeting resulted in scheduling a Lean project to look at the
engagement of PW permitting work. Joan's guidance was to focus on "Business
Practices" during the project work. After some additional conversation that included
some of Joan's management staff and the final creation of the charter, we scheduled
the project work to take place starting 11/16/21. The plan for working with these teams
was to do one full day onsite and then continue work virtually with in-person sessions,
when possible.
The focus on the in-person day was the ENG permits. The loss of the PW Development
Services staff member, with no successful replacement yet, has caused the other PW
staff and primarily the manager, to cover the responsibilities for that position and they
are finding a lot of holes, duplicated efforts, dropped work and various other issues.
The discussion for this day was very successful, ending with the plan to schedule a
meeting with Lisa Maxey to create a basic permit flow before Debra begins meeting with
the rest of the core team. Monthly virtual meetings with the team started on 1/20/22 to
build out the virtual ENG map. After the final virtual session on 4/28/22, Debra finalized
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the map and sent the files over on 5/17/22. I am including that email with those PDFs
with this document for your reference.
The next phase of the project kicked off with a planning meeting on 2/7/23. This round
focused on their EXC permit map so they can streamline and process and finalize what
future state looks like. This onsite work session took place on 3/10/23. The overall
results of that session included these notes from Debra:
Here is the future state map we created—still need to discuss who does what. Dana stated that
at the start of day he did not understand the process, whereas now he is a strong voice truly
understanding and agreeing with the proposed map. Also, notice that the starting current state
process had a clear application-to permit line to cross HOWEVER at the end of the day, the team
realized that THIS process has a flow that is more 3 phases =application start to fee paid, then
permit issued and work done in a short timeline with lots of intense interaction, and then the
final restoration fees paid—warranty—and bond release work. Even for myself(who does lots
of permit kaizens), this is the first time that I truly understood EXC permits. This is great work by
this team:
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Bill considers EXC finished for my work, not yet for them.
I am also including the EXC summary email that Debra provided Bill on 4/4/23 for your
reference.
November 2022 — Jennifer Ferrer-Santa Ines, Director of Finance and Budget,
contacted the Center to discuss Lean assistance to improve their process for obtaining
Certificates of Insurance for projects and contracts. A planning meeting was held on
1/24/2023 and a plan to provide Lean training and a 3-day process improvement kaizen
was agreed upon.
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On 5/30/2023 Joanna provided Lean training to the following kaizen team members
from Purchasing, Airport, Records and Public Works departments:
• Jennifer Ferrer-Santa Ines (Director)
• Jennifer Tippet (Admin Asst)
• Linda Kuntz (Purchasing)
• Shelby Barrett (Airport)
• Brandy Bradford (Records Admin)
• Silvia Corona (Records Admin)
• Kerry Jones (PW Fleet facilities manager)
• Jenise Sanders (PWAdmin Secretary)
• Kristine White (Purchasing Manager
Kristine and Linda completed prework to capture Linda's process steps in advance of
the kaizen. The kaizen occurred 6/05 — 07/2023 and included Joanna's direct
observation with Linda and whole team process mapping and discovery discussions.
From this work, the team identified the following root cause issues:
1. Staff were directed to follow procedures in an outdated Procurement manual that
also had critical information gaps
2. There was no standard process for setting up a vendor prior to receiving quotes
or hiring for service
3. Staff misperceived certificates of insurance as barriers to cost savings
4. The city manager transmittal form lacked a failsafe mechanism to ensure
required certificates of insurance were attached with submittal
5. Training, checklists and other procedure information was not centrally stored in
ICE/Trust layer or in a location easy for staff to find
The team recommended the following improvements to address these issues, with
progress shown through 8/1/23:
1. Digitize city manager transmittal with built in fail safes — 75% complete
2. Kaizen staff will educate their teams on the importance of certificates of
insurance and 1) encourage use of small works roster and 2) let vendors know
about certificate requirements on the front end of a project to reduce back-end
rework— 100% complete
3. Create purchasing policy — 85% complete
4. Update procedures manual and create certificate of insurance standard operating
procedure — 50% complete
5. Add certificate of insurance instructions to contract language for vendors and
update vendor instructions and tips on purchasing website — 25% complete
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Results to date: out of 344 vendors, compliance increased 13 percent points
(from 82% to 95%)
Future planned check-ins with the team were cancelled due to staffing vacancies in the
Finance Director and Purchasing Manager positions.
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