The Lean journey of NVWA: 7 years of working together

In 2019, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority recognised the need to work faster and, above all, smarter. For example, the processing of WOO requests (Open Government Act) took too long and the backlog was increasing rapidly.

Together with Symbol, a Lean approach was established to train employees, analyse processes, and initiate improvements. Symbol guided NVWA for a period of 7 years.

Challenge

In 2019, the NVWA faced a significant challenge: lead times for processing requests were too long and the number of requests being processed had risen sharply.

Approach

Approximately 100 employees have been trained as Green Belts, Black Belts, and Master Black Belts.

A substantial part of the organisation has actively contributed to improvement projects.

Impact

A solid foundation has been laid for a process-oriented organisation in which improvement is central.

Significantly shorter lead times and higher productivity have been achieved for certain processes.

About the NVWA

The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) monitors the safety of food, consumer products, animal welfare, plant health, and nature. As a national regulator, the organisation operates in a complex environment with social impact and high public expectations.

To monitor more effectively and remain agile, the NVWA decided to invest heavily in Lean to work smarter.

Challenge

The challenge at the NVWA was very similar to the challenge present in many other government organisations: working with processes that have become increasingly complex over the years. The emphasis is often on the content of files and laws and regulations, while process performance such as lead time, productivity, and quality are managed less actively. Employees have limited knowledge of Lean techniques and improvement projects are regularly carried out alongside daily work.

This results in long lead times, large backlogs, many handover moments, and unnecessary rework. Decision-making involves multiple departments/managers, which slows down processes and increases backlogs. The result is low productivity, increasing workload, and an organisation that struggles to respond flexibly to new social and administrative developments.

Approach

Together with the NVWA, Symbol developed a Lean Green Belt programme in which learning and improving are fully integrated. From the first day of training, participants worked in teams on their own DMAIC project that directly contributed to the department’s objectives. The training combined classroom sessions, e-learning, serious gaming, practical cases, coaching, and peer review.

Over time, NVWA-specific examples were included in the teaching materials. Symbol not only guided the participants but also strengthened the role of the internal Lean coaches through a coach-the-coach approach. This creates more ownership, better project management, and a sustainable improvement structure within the organisation.

“Continuous improvement is now part of our daily work with visible results”

NVWA Vision and Continuous Improvement

The NVWA strives to achieve more social impact through more effective supervision and better cooperation, both within and outside the organisation. This is reflected in the motto “We work together as one NVWA, inside and outside the organisation”. In recent years, the NVWA has developed into an agile and innovative organisation that can respond quickly to changes in society. Continuous improvement is now seen as an essential part of social innovation and forms the guideline for actions and the ‘True North’.

From Lean projects to an improvement culture

At the NVWA, Lean began in 2019 with the training of individual employees. Initially, no projects were linked to this training. However, that approach was quickly adjusted. In the following years, two groups were trained annually, with participants also being involved in an improvement project within their own department. A limited number of larger, cross-departmental breakthrough projects were also undertaken. One of these projects was even nominated nationally as the best project.

In the years that followed, this grew into an organisation-wide way of working. Employees not only learned to apply Lean techniques but also developed a collective improvement culture. Through practical training, coaching, and concrete DMAIC projects, more ownership, better cooperation, and demonstrable results emerged. Lean was thus no longer a project, but a permanent part of daily work and the continuous development of the organisation.

Continuous improvement with lasting impact

For the NVWA, this Lean journey meant much more than shortening lead times. The organisation developed a common improvement language. In total, more than 100 Green Belts and Black Belts have been trained, and even one Master Black Belt. Dozens of improvement initiatives have been carried out. These were initially coached by experts from Symbol, but soon a portion of the coaching was taken over by internal Lean coaches. By applying theory directly in practice, sustainable improvements were created and employees’ confidence grew to analyse processes themselves, solve bottlenecks, and continue to improve continuously.

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
Lean knowledge	Limited presence	Over 100 employees trained	Improvement culture
Improvement initiatives	Scattered and ad hoc	Guidance via internal Lean coaches	More knowledge and experience
Lead time	Improvement projects not structurally linked	Significant improvement (exact improvement is confidential)	Better customer experience
Productivity	High operational costs	Substantial savings (exact savings are confidential)	Higher productivity

Lessons learned

Sustainable process improvement occurs when training is directly linked to strategic objectives, practical projects, and intensive coaching. Actively involving management in the role of Champion has been developed but also requires further development.

Appointing internal Lean coaches has increased ownership. It has also accelerated decision-making and ensured better anchoring of improvements. For instance, the Lean coaches provide the Yellow Belt training themselves and are also the first to coach the Green Belt projects.

Similar cases

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ZGT: Continuous Improvement Across 50 Departments with Lean Six Sigma

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Private: RWG: Building Structural Continuous Improvement

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Do you recognise this in your organisation?

Do you recognise the challenge of achieving growth without putting pressure on capacity, processes, or quality? Or do you want to make continuous improvement a structural part of daily practice?

Contact Symbol to discover which approach suits your organisation.

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