In June of 2008, the County of Ventura identified continuous improvement as a focus area. The CEO created the Office of Service Excellence to promote and facilitate continuous improvement through the use of a model known as Lean Six.  Lean can be defined as a management approach that seeks to maximize value while removing wasteful activities and practices. Six Sigma can be defined as a management approach that seeks to systematically apply scientific principles to reduce variation and eliminate defects in service offerings.

The Resource Management Agency is committed to continuous improvement in its delivery of information and services to our customers. In early 2008, we identified our first area of focus: the County’s Discretionary Land Use Permitting Process. This is a significant program and process, which will continue for the remainder of 2009 to be a focus area.

In addition to our on-going work related to the discretionary land use permitting process, RMA has made a commitment to broaden its continuous improvement efforts into other areas of our business. As part of our process improvement efforts, we developed a Lean Deployment and Implementation Plan that outlines our implementation approach, how we are internally organized and what roles staff will play to ensure our process improvement efforts are properly placed and carried out in an efficient and effective manner. The Agency also created the Lean Strategic Direction, or Strategic Plan that identified a number of specific process improvement programs for 2009.  To date, the agency has completed or implemented 56% of the projects listed on the Portfolio Implementation Plan.