It was a beautiful day on the UW Tacoma campus. At the UW Board of Regents meeting there today, I was excited to share some fantastic metrics about the University’s efficiency.
Efficiency is one of the topics foremost on my mind every day in terms of providing quality education for the lowest cost to as many students as possible. In an effort to control administrative costs, the UW’s Finance & Facilities department, in 2010, began learning and instituting Lean processes, a method of streamlining systems by involving every employee who has a role in the system, identifying the goals, and encouraging ideas for how to best meet them. Since implementing Lean, Finance & Facilities has realized substantial cost savings and cost avoidance through much more efficient administrative processes. I’m proud that we have created a culture where we are continually striving to improve our work and use our resources most effectively.