Every country in the world has fire departments. They are critical to protecting people and property. Lean and Six Sigma aid in improving the delivery of their services. We’ll look at Lean and Six Sigma applications at fire departments from Texas, Florida, Michigan, and Indonesia and finish with a video of Lean Six Sigma implementation at a Marine Corps fire station.

 

Lean Six Sigma Applied at the Houston Texas Fire Department: USA: Texas

 

A project presentation titled “Increasing Efficiency in the Houston Fire Department Permitting Section Using Lean Six Sigma” covers the use of Lean Six Sigma to the permit process of the Houston Fire Department.

The project presentation includes:

  • SIPOC
  • Current State Process Map and Issues
  • Customer Service Representative Workload Capacity
  • Pareto Diagrams of Permit Request Send Backs for Fire Prevention and Fire Alarms
  • Current State Map for Invoicing
  • Cause and Effect Diagram for Overall Inefficient Mail Process
  • Mail Processing Time Study
  • Customer Service Representative Duties
  • Future State Process Map: High Level All Mail Processing
  • Future State Process Maps: Fire Prevention Permits and Fire Alarms Mail Processing
  • Pareto Diagrams of Permit Request Send Backs for Fire Prevention and Fire Alarms After Improvement
  • Standard Work and Reassignment of Duties
  • Improvements Made

To access the project presentation, copy and paste the following link into your browser.

 

Six Sigma DMAIC Applied at Miami Dade County Fire Department: USA: Florida

 

A project presentation with the objective “To Reduce Number and Cost of Fire Rescue Heavy Fleet Repairs” from Miami Dade County discusses the use of Six Sigma DMAIC to achieve improvements.

The presentation includes:

  • Project Selection
  • Project Charter
  • Project Timeline
  • DMAIC Story Check Points
  • Quality Delivery System Review
  • Review Process Flowchart
  • Data Collection Needs
  • Focus on Fire Heavy Fleet Repairs
  • Pareto Diagram of Work Orders
  • Potential Root Cause Identification and Verification
  • Countermeasures Identification and Selection
  • FMEA for Countermeasures
  • Barriers and Aids Identification
  • Action Plan and Savings
  • Standardization of Countermeasures
  • Lessons Learned

You can read the comprehensive project presentation here.

 

Applying Lean in the Grand Rapids Fire Department: USA: Michigan

 

In a presentation titled “Improving the Fire Department through Lean, not “firefighting”” Brad Brown,

Assistant Fire Chief for the Grand Rapids Fire Department discusses their journey of implementing Lean to achieve sustainable improvement.

The presentation includes:

  • Tools Used
    • A3 Problem Solving
    • 5S
    • Process Mapping
    • Standard Work
    • Rapid Improvement Events

You can read the presentation here.

NOTE: For more information, access the interview of Brad Brown titled “The Fire Department transforming itself and its city” conducted by Planet Lean.

You can access the interview here.

 

Using Lean and 5S Methods to Improve Fire Department Services Times: Indonesia

 

In an article titled “Implementation of Lean Service and 5S Methods to Increase The Efficiency of Service Time in Fire Department” authors Syndi E F Ginting and others discuss the use of Lean and 5S in order to reduce service times.

The article includes:

  • Current State Value Stream Map
  • Identification of Value Added and Non-value Added Activities
  • Fishbone Diagram for Fire Service Time
  • FMEA
  • Future State Value Stream Map

You can read the article here.

“Lean Process Improvement at the Boylston Fire Department”

 

Lean Six Sigma Implementation at a Marine Core Fire Station.

 

See Lean Six Sigma implemented at Marine Corps Fire Station 531 in this video from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

You can see the video here.

 


 

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