As we Strive for Five, our university-wide commitment to Lean

Since January, six UF staff have been trained in Lean methodologies in an effort to transform UF’s culture into a Lean one.

Lean is a methodology that focuses on improving service and delivery to campus customers. The “Lean Team”—which is comprised of Emily Moran, of Finance and Accounting; Kenneth Allen, of Business Affairs; Mikki Hall, of UFIT; and Gwynn Cadwallader, Shay Potts and Amber Wuertz, of UF Human Resources—has been hard at work engaging and empowering staff to help identify and solve problems, eliminate waste and streamline processes.

This work is a collaboration among the Office of the Chief Operating Officer, UFIT, UFHR and the Office of the CFO to improve processes across the entire university system. The six staff are learning key Lean methodologies in order to apply them to suggested projects within their units and across campus. The goal is also for them to train future trainers as we work to become a Lean university together.

Amy Haberman, the new assistant director of the Business Process Improvement Office, will play a key role in these efforts. (Read a story about Amy in this issue.)

As part of the training, UF has selected real business processes and used the Lean methodology value stream mapping process to analyze steps to generate an emergency payroll check, for example. Staff from Payroll Services, campus units and the Lean Team met for three days, resulting in a reduction of the process by an entire day. Other Lean projects have focused on auxiliary billing and the process of hiring foreign nationals.

Other in-process projects include adding the option of project numbers for use within Fund 143—the Auxiliary Enterprise-Teaching and Technology Fund—as well as improving family medical leave information to campus and enabling direct deposit for emergency paychecks.

This work impacts us all and is integral in our strive to become a top-five public university. We need your help and ideas. If you have a business process improvement suggestion, please share it with us here: https://cfo.ufl.edu/about-the-office/feedback/

As always, please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns at cfo@ufl.edu. You can also send story ideas for future issues of CFO Advisor to cfo-comm@ufl.edu.

Go Gators!
Mike McKee
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer