Lean in Alaska

One of the deficiencies in Chugachmiut’s prior financial accounting packages was an inability to print signatures on checks. As a consequence, each and every day one member of the accounting staff spent between 30 and 60 minutes assembling documents for signature, finding check signers, securing signatures and returning to their office to process the documents. By using 45 minutes as an average amount of time spent seeking signers, and 27.5 minutes for an average amount of time the signer spent signing checks, we arrived at a time cost of 38 2/3rds days annually spent securing signatures on checks. The simple act of adopting a financial accounting package that allowed us to integrate signatures together with the approval process for payments saved us the equivalent of more than 7 weeks of effort. Waste is everywhere in an organization, and it is costly.