In a speech on economic policy at the University of Chicago today, Former Minnesota governor and Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty promoted Lean Six Sigma as a tool to reduce the costs of government programs by as much as 20 percent.
Pawlenty called for the application of Lean Six Sigma to all federal agencies as part of his overall plan to achieve a 5 percent annual rate of growth in the nation’s economy should he be elected next year. Currently, he said, the economy is growing at less than 2 percent per year.
Citing a “proven track record” of successful implementation of Lean Six Sigma, both in the Minnesota state government while he was governor and at the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon on the federal level, Pawlenty said that many services of the federal government – such as Amtrak, the U.S. Postal Service, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – could be handled more efficiently by the private sector.
Regarding Lean Six Sigma, Pawlenty said, “The same competitive efficiency that revolutionized America’s private sector over the last three decades should at long last be applied to every corner of the federal bureaucracy as well.”
