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March 2017 Newsletter

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The 8 Wastes
Do these prevent you from doing your best work? Use this form to help remove waste from your work.
Plan: Identify problem, wastes and determine improvement goal.
Do: Prepare action plan to remove waste and meet goal. Implement that plan.
Check: Assess the effectiveness of the improvement, is the waste removed?
Act: Take steps to make improvement permanent or determine needs for next improvement cycle and begin again in Plan.

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Too Busy to Improve?
"I've got too much to do, I don't have time for Lean!"
Improvement projects are a targeted and managed initiative to enhance performance through the elimination of waste (see the 8 wastes above). Improvement projects do not always need to be long 4 day Kaizen events. Simply spending as much as 10% on process improvements will lead to big wins. Sometimes it only takes a facilitated conversation to discover quick changes to better a process for all involved. If you need help conducting a facilitated discussion within your area or cross-departmental, please reach out to Emma Knapp.

Projects Updates from March
  • Concurrent Funding: Office of Academics, Research & Data Management and Business & Finance collaborated to design a more automated process to identify, collect and distribute concurrent funds to high school classes. Changes are planned to take effect for the FY17-18 school year.
  • Professional Leave Form: The Sub Center, Office of Academics and School Staff came together to review the professional development leave form in order to remove over producing waste from the process.
  • Food Service Truck Routes: Knowing more schools will need stops next year for Breakfast in the Classroom, the Food & Nutrition team came together to first clearly understand the current state process prior to just adding people.
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5S
Sort: Eliminate all the things in the work space that are not being used.
Set in Order: Arrange the items used on a daily basis so that they can be easily
accessed and quickly stored.
Shine: Remove all dirt and grime and keep it that way daily. Ensure all equipment is
running correctly.
Standardize: Create a system of tasks and procedures that will reinforce the steps of
5S on a daily basis.
Sustain: Create a motivational culture of 5S in the workplace and maintain
the results of your efforts.

Pictured is an example of a DMPS employee putting the 5S concept to work at her desk. We would love to show 5S at work in your area, send examples to Emma Knapp to feature in the next newsletter!

Shout Outs!

Amazing job Hoover Counseling Department in completing 4 year academic plans with all your students!
Thank you to Cheryllynn Bricker, Sarah Dougherty and Nicole Wichman for working on process improvements during Spring break!

Past Newsletters

March 2016
April 2016
May 2016
June 2016
July 2016
August 2016
September 2016
October 2016
November 2016
December 2016
January 2017
February 2017
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Des Moines Public Schools
Continuous Improvement
2100 Fleur Drive
Des Moines, IA 50321