The presentation discusses using FME to improve public sector processes through lean principles. It describes how the speaker identified inefficient processes at a water council for allocating applications and site visits. Time and motion studies revealed wasted time formatting reports. New FME workspaces standardized the process, increased value-added time from 39% to 86% by automating formatting and spatial analysis. This led to improved dashboards, mobile apps, and more time for planners to focus on value-added work. The presentation advocates applying these principles across the 1000+ services of local Irish governments to continually improve processes and services.

1. FME, improving public
services one transformer at a
time

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Jon Hawkins
GIS Project Lead
Waterford City and County Council, Ireland
Over 20 years’ experience of implementing,
managing, and utilising GIS in the public sector in
both the UK and Ireland.
Certified FME Professional since 2013. Recently
completed a Masters in Business Administration
(eMBA).
Swimming in the sea helps me come up with
new ways to use FME.

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Are your workspaces really
delivering what your
customers need?

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Could they be doing
more to make your
colleagues lives easier,
and to deliver better
services

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Agenda
● The old way of improving
things using FME
● A new way, to make
genuine and sustained
improvements to your
organisation using FME

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The old way

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Process improvement using FME

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Identify
Customers and
Specify Value
Create Flow by
eliminating waste
Identify and
map the
Stream
Respond to
Customer Pull
Pursue
Perfection
Maximising the
Value using Lean
Principles and
Methods
Continuous Improvement Cycle

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So what does this look like and what can it
achieve

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Staff identified the value,
together we mapped the entire
process and identified areas
that could be improved. We
carried out a time and motion
study on the areas identified to
reveal the hidden workings and
waste.
Developed an FME
Workspaces to remove
waste, knowing
exactly what was
required and what
could be done to help
improve the entire
process.
Process lacking a standardised
assessment format for producing
final decisions, and more
consistency required. Also, time
being wasted on producing
non-standard documentation.
Planners Report
1 2 3

15. Planners Report
Site Visit

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Allocation of Applications and Monitoring

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Time and motion study

18. 95+ mouse clicks
35 times opening
and closing
browser windows
4 to 6 minutes spent
copying, pasting and
reformatting text
Under-utilisation of
resources
50 seconds spent working around a
problem that could be fixed
Value-Add Analysis
3 Planners:
• 3 ways of working
• 3 templates
• 3 sets of wording

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Before and After

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Reading and formatting textual data - Before

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Reading and formatting textual data - After
40+ MS Word
Transformers
Thanks to: Jan Bliki - European Environment Agency, Copenhagen

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Spatial Analysis - Before
60+ policy and
constraint layers to
consider

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Spatial Analysis - After
22+ Feature
Reader
Transformers

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New one best way

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After 8 clicks of the mouse, and a wait of 20 seconds,
the draft report is ready for the planner to review and
add value
On demand, standard, systematic, and without waste

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39%
Before
Value-Add Activities

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86%
After
Value-Add Activities

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Thanks to 300+ transformers
Planners now spend 47% more
of their time on value adding
activities, and are experiencing
time savings of 41%+ during this
stage of the overall process.

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But we didn’t stop there…

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Allocation of Applications
and Monitoring
• Dashboard for oversight and
allocation
• Date calculator transformers help
create meaningful live statistics,
through the creation of additional
date fields

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Site Visit App
• Data written to AGOL daily
• Replacing post it notes on maps and
lat lngs written on case files
Links to launch SatNav in car

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To really improve a
process we should take our
passion for FME and visit
where the value is added,
the “Gemba”

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Here you will find infinite opportunities
to use FME transformers to improve
processes, make the lives of your
colleagues easier, and in turn deliver
better public services.

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Local government sector in
Ireland provides 1,000+ public
services
That’s a lot of processes that FME could help improve
Source: LGMA.ie

35. Thank You
jhawkins@waterfordcouncil.ie

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