Federal & State Cooperation

Case-12-EPA-NPDES.pdf

Problem

In August 2008, representatives from EPA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., EPA Region 7 headquarters in  Kansas City, Kansas, and the states of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska met to conduct a Lean project  called a Kaizen event The intent of this event was to improve the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) process. The team needed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation process throughout these states. They also needed to develop processes that would improve collaboration between the EPA and the states and help them resolve issues more quickly. It was currently taking over five months to resolve technical issues and the process was overly complex.

Approach

The team developed a current state value stream map of the implementation process that included annual strategic planning, resolution of technical issues, and EPA oversight actions.   The team was able to develop performance criteria and measures for evaluating state programs and improve planning a communication during the annual process. They also identified technical issues that had delayed permits and developed a better identification plan to handle those issues. A new process for coordinating permits and enforcement review helped the team eliminate non-value added process steps that had created
communication gaps in the old process.

Results

The team was able to redesign the NPDES process to produce significant results. The Lean event discovered and eliminated large amounts of waste; reducing the cycle time 82% by removing more than   four months of cost. The team also was successful in eliminating waste from EPA’s review of a state’s wastewater review program; reducing the variation and cycle time by approximately 70%; thereby cutting  up to another 13 months of cost.