Whenever I hear politicians discuss manufacturing or manufacturing concepts, I cringe. Almost none know what they are talking about.

I live in a small county, so it doesn’t have a lot of political clout. The county commissioners (all Republican) and a couple of other department heads (Republican) decided they didn’t like the constant budget cuts coming from our state government (headed by a Republican) even though the state kept adding more funding requirements. I only mention the political party to note the irony that they are all members of the same one. This is not “partisan politics.” So they wrangled a meeting with the governor.

Now, I’m quoting from the Sidney Daily News, not known as the most accurate of newspapers, but it’s the only thing we have. It reported that during the meeting, “(Gov.) Kasich suggested the county might enefit from Six Sigma training, a program that reviews current procedures and tries to make Lean transformations for county agencies to run more efficiently.” (Oct. 25)

Dilbert’s pointy haired boss couldn’t have strung disjointed, buzz word concepts together better than that. The truth buried in the quote is that all government agencies at all levels should endeavor to adopt Lean thinking.

As you all know, Six Sigma is a methodology designed to reduce the variability of a process. It has been valuable in many organizations, but has its limits (didn’t really mean the pun, but go with it).

Lean focuses on reducing or eliminating waste. Let’s see, government agencies / eliminate waste. Need I say more…