UAF’s administrative services process improvement initiative began as part of the Administrative and Support Review process that evolved from the 2010 Executive Leadership Workshop. One of the goals of the Administrative Support Review Committee was to identify common processes to streamline that would improve overall administrative effectiveness.

 

After considerable process mapping efforts resulting in very little tangible change, we’ve embarked on a more holistic process improvement approach to produce streamlined processes and administrative efficiency UAF-wide. To this end, six staff members have gone through extensive training to become qualified process improvement facilitators and are guiding these two project teams. We also have an executive level steering committee to assist in the event that policy, regulation and information system issues need to be addressed.

 

As of April 2012, two projects are moving forward, Grant Award Setup and Employee Recruitment, each with its own campus-wide project team. In the coming weeks, each team will begin communicating with the key staff and the campus community overall to outline goals, timelines and information needs.

 

Achieving and documenting measurable cost savings and service improvements is key to the success of these project improvement efforts. To that end, we will be asking for help from the units in two phases – first during an information collection step and later to evaluate potential process improvements. I would appreciate it if you would let your faculty and staff know that we are actively working to improve these processes and if you would also encourage them to participate when contacted by the project teams.

 

I sincerely thank those staff members and units already fully engaged in this process and look forward to celebrating the success of these process improvement projects by the end of the fall semester.

 

-Pat Pitney

Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services

April 2012