Lean Six Sigma green belt improves regulatory permitting process

Courtesy Photo | Marie Kopka, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District biologist in regional planning and environment division north.  

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, UNITED STATES

12.02.2021

Story by Melanie Peterson 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District

For Marie Kopka her journey to become a Lean Six Sigma green belt was about improving the customer experience. Kopka is a biologist with regional planning and environment division north and was formerly a lead project manger in the regulatory division.

Lean Six Sigma, or LSS, is a process improvement program to help eliminate waste within an organization, said Andrew Huffman, district quality manager and LSS coordinator. “It’s very valuable to get people certified, because it identifies people that have the skillset to look at a process and determine where value is added and to identify non-value-added tasks within the process and eliminate those tasks,” Huffman added.

Kopka’s certification journey began with identifying an opportunity for improvement in the regulatory permitting process. The average time required to determine the need for a federal permit is 30 minutes, and the goal of the project was to reduce that time by 80%.

Meghan McKinney, environmental protection technician, served as the subject matter expert for the project. “I’m hopeful that when we’re able to implement this, it’ll be time saving in the intake process, for the project managers and ultimately the public,” McKinney said.

Implementation of the project will be in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources since the Corps receives joint online permit applications through their website.

Kopka’s project was identified in the LSS national newsletter as a Corps best practice, and the project form is being used as a template for the continuous improvement community of practice.

“I wanted to do a project that would have an impact on regulatory and that would also benefit the public. I really wanted to understand how to go through this process so that I could apply Lean Six Sigma concepts in other areas,” Kopka said. “The most valuable part of that were the discussions we had as a team and working through that process, challenging ourselves of our own assumptions.”

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Story was originally published on Page 18 of the Fall 2021 issue of Crosscurrents. It may also be found at https://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/Portals/57/docs/Public%

• Date Taken: 12.02.2021
• Date Posted: 12.07.2021 09:57
• Story ID: 410594
• Location: ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, US
• Hometown: BROOKFIELD, WISCONSIN, US