Improving lead times at Hill Air Force BaseIn today's challenging economic times, organizations must seriously look for ways to improve their level of service, even within government. With shrinking military budgets and reductions in force, all government agencies must streamline operations as much as possible to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and the warfighter is supported. The National Health Service (NHS) in the East Midlands, England has created an excellent website, which compares their twelve steps of process improvement across their improvement network (NHS - East Midlands, 2012). The website offers many tools and techniques as well as improvement tools that can be used during the process improvement stages. Although many organizations struggle to improve their processes, careful analysis suggests that government agencies can reap the benefits of process improvement just as much as other public and private organizations. private sectors, especially if they follow an organized approach such as that identified on the NHS Improvement Network. Step 1 – Choose a specific service to improve The public procurement process can be a daunting task. Whether the acquisition is competitive or not, procurement lead times can vary significantly depending on the type of procurement. With news of irregularities occurring daily within government, increased oversight is required during the public procurement process, adding unnecessary time to public procurement deadlines. With increased surveillance requirements, it has become more difficult to get necessary products to warfighters when they need them, greatly affecting the capacity of the procurement office... middle of paper... although some might argue that it can be difficult to make improvements within an organization. As long as organizations follow the first four steps of process improvement, they should be able to operate more effectively and efficiently. For organizations to improve their service levels, they must examine both their internal and external processes and determine the steps needed to make the necessary improvements. It is essential for organizations to reduce their operating costs and improve their level of service, even within government. Works Cited Jacobs, FR, & Chase, RB (2010). Operations and supply chain management. (13 ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.MindTools.com. (2012). essential skills for a great career. Retrieved from http://www.mindtools.com/NHS - East Midlands. (2012). The improvement network. Retrieved from http://www.tin.nhs.uk/