 Staff from the Kitsap County Auditor's Recording Division celebrate results achieved through a recent kaizen.
(Port Orchard, WA) – Tasks that routinely took weeks are now instant, and that change has earned the Kitsap County Auditor's Office a national award.
The Kitsap County Auditor's Office has been recognized by The National Association of Counties (NACo) with the 2018 Achievement Award for its program titled "Recording Process Improvement." The awards honor innovative, effective county government programs that strengthen services for residents.
As part of the Kitsap County Auditor's mission to ensure quality services, the county government teamed up with Kitsap County's Performance Excellence Across Kitsap (PEAK) team to implement a five-day business process improvement session known as a "kaizen"[ that resulted in a 1,900 percent speed increase in processing recorded documents.
"We were so proud of the results," said David Frisk, Recording & Licensing Manager. "Our employees and local businesses were able to work together to streamline our process. We discovered many things we were doing were not important to our customers." After working with staff and local businesses, the Auditor's recording process was radically changed by reducing over 100 steps down to 41 steps.
"We were able to clarify the problem, perform analysis and identify key solutions," said Andy Hento, PEAK/PMO Manager. The results were astonishing. The kaizen provided the method to combine four different processes into a one-piece flow process. This eliminated waiting queues that could hold documents over 20 days and reduced errors significantly. "We have been getting better and better since focusing on a culture of continuous improvement," noted Dolores Gilmore, Kitsap County Auditor. "All of the Auditor's staff is committed to our mission to ensure quality, accountability, and accessibility to the people of Kitsap County. The recognition from The National Association of Counties regarding our Recording Kaizen is proof that Kitsap County government is delivering peak performance for the people of Kitsap."
The NACo Annual Conference & Exposition will be held in Nashville, Tennessee's Davidson County from July 13th – 16th, 2018. More information is available at http://www.naco.org/.
Kitsap County was formed in 1857 and was the hub of industrial activity that built the Pacific Northwest. Today, the Kitsap County Auditor's four divisions — Elections, Financial, Recording & Licensing — continue to be a hub for citizens with services like voting and marriage licensing. The Kitsap County Auditor's mission is serving the people of Kitsap County by providing essential services in a manner that ensures quality, accountability, and accessibility.
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