February 2018

New Year's Resolution?

A key attribute of the "Lean Oswego" Continuous Process Improvement is that it is continuous. It only works if it becomes a habit, part of our corporate culture. And not something sporadic, like dusting off the treadmill in response to a New Year's resolution.

So what have "Lean Oswego" folks been up to in the last few months? A lot, it turns out:

Planning

• Planning is working on a significant streamlining of staff reports for development applications through a simple checklist approach.
• Planning is also assisting other city departments in preparing land use applications for city projects, saving time and consultant dollars required for permitting.

Planning and Fire

• The Fire Marshal now indicates at the pre-app stage if the proposed development will require Fire review at the land use stage. Before, Fire was routed all pre-app and land use cases for review and applicants were charged a fire review fee at both stages. The new process saves review time by the Fire Marshal by eliminating unnecessary land use review and saves money for applicants who no longer have to pay the Fire Review fee at the land use stage if Fire review is not necessary.

HR

• The Central Safety Committee moved to electronic packets.
• We no longer print performance review paperwork in HR, and more and more PAFs are completed through Laserfiche.

IT

• IT has completed fiber connections to the Clackamas County fiber ring for most city buildings, saving significantly on our Internet bill, and providing much higher speeds.
• The new website, recently unveiled, should be easier to keep updated, and will provide better navigation and searching.

Police

• LOPD Records has worked to implement an encrypted transmission system for both case files and email.  This means that we no longer need to hand carry reports and data to the District Attorney of Courts; and we’ve eliminated a tremendous amount of paper.
• The Police Department has become a big fan of Dropbox for information sharing, and has spread the use of the technology to other police departments, the courts and the District Attorney’s Office -  again, a real increase in efficiency and real decrease in the amount of paper we use.
• The Police Department now has a huge variety of apps for use by the officers in the field.  Officers use their smartphones to access resources ranging from policy, to scheduling, to criminal codes.  These apps help to increase efficiency by placing the information right into the hands of our officers.
• The Police Department now completes an abundance of “classroom training”  online.  From Haz Mat to Cultural Competency, to use of force – the bookwork is done in the office – leaving more time for practical hands on training.

Library

• The library's new RFID check out and check in equipment is very efficient...and cool to watch, too.

Engineering

• Engineering has drafted standard drawings and specs that will help both us and developers

City Manager's Office

• The Records team with help from departmental staff has made huge progress in digitizing documents in the records center and recycling the paper files.
• Long attachments to ordinances and resolutions are no longer printed and then re-scanned when the final documents are signed, but instead are kept in digital form.
• Lake Oswego University is completely paperless, with all class materials distributed via mobile devices (mostly inexpensive Chromebooks).

WELCOMING NEW EMPLOYEES

Kim Vermillion joined the ACC in January, providing admin support at the front counter. Kim was born and raised in the San Jose area, graduating from Willow Glen High School. She thought she would always live there, but then she and her husband Steve visited the Northwest, and she was hooked. They have lived in West Linn for many years, raising a son and daughter there (now they are 23 and 25). For the past six years, Kim has worked for the West Linn-Wilsonville School District. Through experience in her own family, she discovered she enjoyed working with older people, and has found a good fit at the ACC. Outside of work, she has many interests, mostly outdoor-related including riding ATVs on the coast, snowboarding, and pickle ball. And she ran a half marathon last year. She breaks a new hire streak in that they don't have a dog or cat.