Leading the way
Jack Nolan shows visitors from UC Riverside the FS Stores Lean idea board and talks about their daily huddles.
Guest post by FS Chief of Staff LuAnn Stokke
They say the best way to learn a foreign language is immersion—spending time in the place and within the culture where that language is spoken daily, and where its citizens conduct their lives using it. This concept of immersion is the mindset of the Vice Chancellor of Administration at University of California-Riverside, Ron Coley. Coley researched Lean and Balanced Scorecard in higher education, learned about UW Facilities Services, and reached out to Charles Kennedy to learn more.
After Charles and I visited UC-Riverside’s FS-equivalent leadership team last fall, Coley committed to bring his entire team of almost 30 leaders to UW to see Lean in action, at what he considers a worldclass example of Lean at a world-leading research university.
This large contingent arrived in Seattle on Sunday, February 7 and then spent the next two days meeting many of our teams in Transportation Services, Facilities Maintenance & Construction, Finance & Business Services, Campus Engineering & Operations, and Building Services.
Tour groups interacted and asked questions of custodial teams in Suzzallo-Allen, Odegaard, and Savery Hall, impressed with the huddles and idea implementation they saw. They traversed the Power Plant, and walked through utility tunnels.
The second day, Plant Services was the site of tours to FMC’s Regulated Materials, Project Managers and Building Envelope teams, along with FABS’ Moving & Surplus, FS-Stores and Warehouse, and Accounts Payable areas.
Visitors were impressed with teams’ ability to set goals and daily targets, track and measure them, and generate ideas to improve. Everywhere they went, they experienced our focus on improving our work every day.
Closing out the visit, the group learned from several Balanced Scorecard measure owners and senior leaders. Coley extended his deep thanks and respect to FS’ employees for their willingness to share their time and experience. He challenged his team—at the visit’s end— to commit to following our path of Lean engagement. We will stay in close contact, and build upon this partnership.
