Improving Efficiency and Productivity in Government Institutes: Reduction of Cycle Time of the Mail Delivery System (MDS) of the University of Kelaniya: A Case Study

Abstract

'Inefficiency' and 'Low Productivity' in government sector organizations have become topics being critically discussed at forums in various levels at present and therefore there was a trend during the last two decades to launch initiatives to privatize government organizations for improving its effectiveness. As successive governments have not identifies an alternative solution rather than privatization, they established the Public Enterprise Reform Commission (PERC). which seeks to sell such government institutes to the private sector instead of looking for managerial solutions to improve the efficiency as well as the productivity of those institutions. The objective of this study was to investigate the possibility of improving efficiency and productivity in government sector organizations by using managerial tools. Consequently, the Mail Delivery System (MDS) of the University of Kelaniya was identified and a pilot project was launched aiming at reducing the time required to distribute a cycle of letters. It was noted that each office aide (peon) had to walk a distance of 4 km per mail delivery cycle per day; At the end of each cycle. all the office aides in the University have walked a total distance of 216 km per mail delivery cycle. As there was no special time scheduled for mail delivery, the office aides had walk from division to division every day and perhaps several times per day. Therefore, in reality. the average distance walked by an office aide is frequently more than 4 km. In order to understand and evaluate the efficiency of existing MDS of the University and the proposed system the Six Sigma Statistical Method was used. Consequently, the yield of the existing MDS and the proposed one were calculated. The base Sigma level of the old MDS was at a very low level. With the introduction of the new MDS indicating statistical stability, the time all office aides spent in delivering mail have been reduced to 45 minutes per cycle; the distance has been reduced to a total of 4 km per cycle and the number of office aides required has been reduced by 25.