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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07/22/2025 - Regular - Additional Docs-LEAN Presentation DCD Lean Process Nicholas Bond, AICP July 15, 2025 1 Lean Services – WA State Auditor’s Office Free program offered by the state. Conducted July 7-9, 2025 2 Project Team Facilitator: Joanna Bailey, SAO Project Sponsor: Nick Bond Team Go-To Person: Lisa Stone Team Members Mahlia Ritzman – Permit Tech Angela Garcia – Deputy Director DCD/Building Official/Fire Code Official Aubrey Wilson – Plans Examiner II Christian Williams – Assistant City Engineer Josh Sills – Engineer I Doug Price – Building Inspector 1 Stephanie Andrews – Senior Planner Mary Kay Nichols – Permit Tech On-Call Team Participants: Noah Crocker, Rebecca Zick, Teresa Kim, Deborah Kong, Janell Smith, Scott Wolf 3 Project Charter - Background Background. Residential Plan review, permitting, and inspection process. From permit submittal until Certificate of Occupancy. This is a priority because stakeholders have expressed concerns to the City including Council Members and the Mayor regarding the length of time for the plan review, permitting and inspection process. A large developer has conducted their own internal Lean Management process and have asked the City to do the same. Ongoing confusion within the building community is placing significant stress on staff and impacting their ability to maintain expected service levels. Additionally, the volume of customer contact has become excessive. 4 Project Targets Educate Mayor and Council on the process  (Report Out: Council Presentation: Summary) Clearly identify the process and timing for each department  ( How long do steps take? When do steps occur? What is the sequence? Any delays and is everyone aware of each department’s timing needs) Identify bottlenecks  Software and processes Gain efficiencies where possible  Software and processes 5 Process Map Submission Plan Review Utility Work Orders Permit Issuance Inspection Certificate of Occupancy Revision to Issued Permit 6 Process Map - Submission Can take up to 7 days to transfer permits from Camino into SmartGOV system. The work associated with transferring from Camino to SmartGov takes 1 day, but current staffing can only accommodate the transfer of 4-6 permits per day. When codes change, the Department sees a surge of applications from builders wanting to vest to previous codes. The 7-day backlog can become considerably longer temporarily. 7 Process Map Plan Review Custom Plans/Tract Homes take 2 weeks per review cycle with the average plan set requiring 3 review cycles. Clock is stopped while we are waiting for revisions. Basic Plans take 2 weeks to complete plan review. 8 Process Map – Utility Work Orders On-call staff assisted with process mapping. Utility work orders take 2-3 weeks to process. Basic plans may be ready to issue prior to utility work orders being complete. A process improvement has been identified and was already in the works through Finance Department and IT. Utility work orders to be routed through Laserfiche. Should be up and running by the end of the year. 9 Process Map – Permit Issuance Once plan review and utility work orders completed, permit issuance takes 1-2 days. 10 Total Time Submission to Issuance Permits in Camino: 7 days Permits loaded to SmartGOV: 1 day Plan review (not basic plans): 42 days (excludes time awaiting revisions) Utility work orders: concurrent with plan review Permit Issuance: 2 days Total Time: 52 days Does not include: Time waiting for plan review fees to be paid. Time waiting for applicant to submit revisions. Time waiting for applicant to pay fees for utility work order. 11 Process Map - Inspections Varies by builders Average of 13 building inspections (4 of which are re-inspections) Average of 5 public works inspections 12 Process Map Certificate of Occupancy Can be processed in a day. Certificates of occupancy are usually batched and processed 1-2 times per week. 13 Identifying Process Waste Underutilized Resources: Any asset, whether it's physical, human, or intellectual, that isn't being used to its full potential, thus creating waste and hindering efficiency.  Waiting: Time when work-in-process is waiting for the next step in production (no value is being added).  Rework: Rework is the process of correcting defects or errors in a product or process after it has already been produced or completed.  Overproduction: Producing more items than required by the next stage in the process or more than the customer is currently demanding.  Motion: Unnecessary movement (movement that does not add value). 14 Identifying Process Waste 15 Bottlenecks – Camino to SmartGov Submittals in Sitting in Camino Camino made it easy to submit a higher volume of permits. The permit center is now a bottleneck. Camino to SmartGOV Separate Systems Camino generates an application Application must be manually entered into SmartGOV County designed a custom IT solution for this lack of compatibility Waste: Underutilized Resource, Waiting, Rework, Overproduction Duplicate Data Entry 16 Bottlenecks – Duplicating Data Entry Files are uploaded to Camino Files then moved to Windows Explorer SmartGOV can serve as both file management and point of upload. Creates new workload to manage poor submittals or previous versions of documents. Waste: Rework, Underutilized Resource, Waiting 17 Bottlenecks – Permit Payments SmartGOV is used to calculate fees. Fee Sheet Generated. The city is working on applications before fees have been received, hoping that plan review fees are paid. Applications are not counter complete until fees have been paid. Tyler (Finance Software) does not talk to SmartGOV Finance must generate their own duplicate fee sheet. This can result in small delays Waste: Rework, Waiting, Underutilized Resource 18 Bottleneck – Utility Work Order Process Process not automated. Permit Center creates work order – routes to Public Works Public Works reviews – returns to Permit Center Permit Center routes to Finance Finance has two step review – returns to DCD and notifies applicant of fees due. Applicant pays connection fees. Permit can be issued. Public Works does not have backup staff. Work order process can take longer than plan review, delaying permit issuance. 19 Bottleneck – Signing Permits/Permit Conditions Done via PDF and email. Applicants must initial each permit condition and sign the permit. Signed permit must be returned via email. Waste: Underutilized Resource, Waiting, Motion 20 Bottleneck – Failed Inspection Reinspection fees must go through DCD to Finance and be paid by applicant. Can’t request reinspection until failed inspection has been entered into SmartGOV (at end of day) and fees have been paid. Waste: Underutilized Resource, Waiting, Rework, Overproduction. This is a bottleneck for the developer, but functionally discourages calling for inspections when work is not complete. Building Code 110.5 Inspection requests. It shall be the duty of the holder of the building permit or their duly authorized agent to notify the building official when work is ready for inspection. It shall be the duty of the permit holder to provide access to and means for inspections of such work that are required by this code. 21 Bottleneck – Resubmittals (After Permit Issuance) Currently routed via email, do not appear in SmartGOV SmartGOV does not allow new workflow steps on issued permit. Requires new permit number. Creates filing problem. We are already working on a solution with SmartGOV Waste: Underutilized Resource, Waiting, Rework, Motion 22 Turning Project Map into Priorities Big Issues – Identified Top 3 Low Hanging Fruit – 7 Near-term Improvements Identified The elephant in the room 23 Top 3 Priorities for Eliminating Waste #1 Payment System Significant Motion, Waiting, Underutilized Resources, and Rework Motion: Applicants must travel between DCD and City hall to make payments Waiting: Waiting for finance to create documents and provide receipt. DCD must calculate fees in SmartGOV before fees can be paid. Underutilized Resource: SmartGOV is capable of processing payments. Most SmartGOV users use this function (Bremerton, Kitsap County, Bainbridge Island, Poulsbo). SmartGOV can generate an end of day report that can be uploaded to Tyler (Finance) for reconciliation. Rework: Fee sheets created twice. After payment in Tyler, data must be reentered into SmartGOV. Per Code, applications not counter complete without payment of fee. We start working on permit hoping that plan review fees are paid. Some payments are mailed rather than paid with credit card. Permits waiting on someone's desk for confirmation of payment for 5-10 days. 3% fee discourages use of credit card. Could add 3% to permit fee and do away with surcharge to improve efficiency. 24 Top 3 Priorities for Eliminating Waste #2 Inspection Policies All builders must use inspection scheduling portal. Owner/builders may still call or email permit center for one-off permits. Builders may not schedule inspections prior to being ready for inspections. Builders are speculatively scheduling inspections in the hope that they are ready. This takes away appointments from builders who are ready. Discouraging this type of speculative behavior will increase our inspection capacity. Possible fee for an inspection showing up and the project is not ready. Consider changing the deadline for cancelling an inspection (currently 7am day of inspection). Consider increasing the waiting period for reinspection if builder is not ready. 25 Top 3 Priorities for Eliminating Waste #3 File Structure Permit Center made changes to file structure for certain permits. This was done without input for all plan reviewers, was driven by building permit plan reviewers. Finding current versions of plans differs depending on permit type. Work group to be created to standardize the process for permit types with a written guide to be produced. 26 Low Hanging Fruit Permit Conditions QAQC for consistency in adding/removing permit conditions. Currently, we pre-populate conditions to save time and remove conditions that do not apply. We have no way of telling if everyone has review conditions. Training opportunity identified. Working group needed to review and revise existing permit condition language. 27 Low Hanging Fruit Role Clarity Org Chart – Staff turnover – All Departments For instance, DCD did not know who did what in utility billing. Need to clearly define expectations for permit review leads. 28 Low Hanging Fruit Permit Routing Simplify Routing Transmittal sheet could be simplified or combined into body of email. Transmittal sheet lists file location, project reviewers, project lead, etc. SmartGOV could eliminate transmittals altogether if portal activated. 29 Low Hanging Fruit Training Schedule regular SmartGOV training. Currently training is handled by permit center at time of hire. Consider group training by SmartGOV staff to ensure uniformity. Schedule Bluebeam Training. Bluebeam used for plan review – mark ups and annotations on plans. Training resources for development community. Working on scheduling ICC OlyPen Chapter training for designers. WABO online training available to anyone. 30 Low Hanging Fruit SmartGOV Cycling This feature was activated earlier this year. Provides time keeping – clock start and stop. Will provide better performance metrics as we gather data. Needs to be expanded to all permit types. 31 Resolved Issues SmartGOV Reporting Permit Center did not know that weekly reports were missing projects marked as deficient. Plan reviewers were losing track of permits that were in a deficient status. 3rd Party Review Need workflow step for SFRs added to SmartGOV to remind project lead to add permit conditions provided by consultant. 32 The Elephant in the Room What is our long-term software plan. Status Quo? Invest in SmartGOV to bring permit portal online? This would require a project manager and one-time payments to SmartGOV to help us build out system. Keep Camino? Camino could be expanded and potentially replace SmartGOV. New software that is georeferenced and utilizes AI? SmartGOV is old but effective technology. Should we consider the next generation of systems? This would add significant cost and would take 1-2 years to get up and running. Some systems incorporate zoning code into permit system for efficiency of review. The issue needs to be studied to understand cost, timelines, benefits. Mid-year review request. Should be done by 3rd Party Consultant – Similar to Asset Management System 33 Questions 34