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The mission of  the Indiana State Police is to provide the most professional, effective and courteous police service possible at all times and with every endeavor.

Situation:

The Indiana State Police (ISP) Continuous Improvement unit was formed in 2008. The unit, originally made up of Lieutenant Mike Lepper and Sergeant Mike Carrick, started with a big task to identify opportunities for improvement and implement change within their department using a small budget. 

Solution:

They attended meetings of Lean Networks sponsored by Purdue TAP, and subsequently attended a TAP Principles of Lean Workshop.

Through their continued efforts, they were able to introduce Lean concepts to all 1900 employees at 25 facilities serving 92 counties. Along the way, ISP’s Lean motto became: “Each employee is empowered to seek and destroy waste where ever it is located”. Soon multiple locations throughout the state had Lean Coordinators.

Highlights of the ISP Lean journey include creation of an internal SharePoint network site used by all employees for the Continuous Improvement Unit. In addition, a recurring newsletter publicizes and gives credit to success and efforts – reinforcing the Lean Tool Box – and providing reminders.

 

Results:

What did ISP find on their Lean journey? Data is the key to improvement -if you don’t measure it you can’t improve it. Eventually, Lt. Lepper and Sgt. Carrick completed Purdue TAP’s Six Sigma Black Belt training. Now they look at all processes from a data point of view.

Some examples of their Use of Data Projects include:

• Trooper Application Process $266,000 saved
• Email Storage $87,000 saved annually
• Computer Based Reporting System: Annual Equipment Audit $52,000 saved
• Computer Usage $10,558 saved annually
• Internal Investigation Process $4,047 saved