Order in the courts: propagating a culture of efficiency within the Irish Court Services

Abstract

This paper exposes two 5S style experiments that introduced Lean Six Sigma (LSS) techniques to the Irish Court Services Dublin Circuit Court. Manufacturing concepts were adapted to the service industry, including a new definition of ‘informational workpiece’, to minimize waste and process variation reduction. Senior management subsequently embraced the authors’ recommendations of change management using a bottom-up approach. Other post-project outcomes include improved staff morale, decreased risk, and the simplification of complex processes.

Keywords:

• Courts
• government
• Lean Six Sigma
• live project
• 5S

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Richard Kelley, Sean Quigley, Tom Ward and the entire ICS team. Specifically, thanks to Richard Kelley for his review of this manuscript and support in overseeing and supporting numerous projects following this cultural transformation at ICS. We would also like to thank Cassidy ‘Cub’, Noble and Mary Jo Baumgartner for their contributions to the field execution of the project detailed in this paper.

IMPACT

Legal services and law firms handle complicated cases and have highly variable service operations which provide a lush landscape for process efficiency analysis. This paper details the findings from an early Irish Court Services unified office strategy continuous improvement project which later led to the development of a change management team. The paper shows how it is possible to achieve a cultural paradigm shift in how people think about Lean waste elimination and Six Sigma process variation reduction.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dan Bumblauskas

Dan Bumblauskas is an Assistant Professor and Hamilton/ESP International Fellow at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, USA.

Salil Kalghatgi

Salil Kalghatgi is an analytics consultant specializing in driving cultural outcomes. He lives in Los Angeles, USA.