Process Improvement Strategy for Public Sector Organizations : A case study at Linköping Municipality - MoS department

Abstract: The public-sector organizations have been in limelight for research work about the implementation of various quality management approaches with the evolution of process management ideology into this sector. The awareness among the citizens regarding their rights and demand for qualitative service has been increased which led to the focus on the quality management approaches like Six Sigma and Lean. The public-sector organizations such as municipalities, health care, social administrators and others are not driven by profits unlike private sectors making it complex to implement these approaches. This led to the purpose of the thesis to research on proposing a process improvement strategy for increased customer satisfaction in the public sector. Seven tools from Lean and Six Sigma methodologies have been chosen to propose the strategy and they are – Process Mapping, Voice of the Customer, Critical to Quality, Cause & Effect Analysis, 5 Why’s, Benchmarking and Standardization. To execute this research, a qualitative case study methodology has been conducted at MoS department of Linköping Municipality on one of their ground process – customer request handling process. The research questions were designed to understand how to map the process, the customer orientation and process efficiency specific to the case and finally grasp the effectiveness of the selected tools for public sector. Various data sources were collected for this study. The empirical findings led to interesting analysis and discussion on the case study in relation to the previous literatures reviewed in this area. Moreover, the usefulness of these tools has been clearly identified and the strategy for process improvements has been proposed. From the overall discussion, major conclusions on the thesis work have been made with respect to the research questions. Firstly, while mapping the process it is important to consider the customer perspective and identify the process steps which lead to customer satisfaction. Further, communication with the customers and considering their feedback for future improvements is identified to be vital. Finally, the selected tools contribute majorly for the process improvements in public sector where the numerical data availability is limited and the importance of the strategic order for the tools has been highlighted. Key Words: Process Improvements, Six Sigma, Lean, Public Sector, Municipal Organizations, Customer Orientation, Customer Satisfaction.