TOANO Irecently read with interest about some innovative and creative ways the Virginia Department of Transportation has found to get more efficient. It confirms for me that while no human endeavor is perfect, VDOT doesn't deserve to take all the blame being heaped upon it. It also demonstrates that the best practices of the private sector can be successfully applied to a government agency.

What got my attention was the recent (and largely ignored) news that the agency's Knowledge Management program was being recognized by the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Out of hundreds of applications, it is one of 15 semifinalists nationwide. The list will be pared down to six finalists for the national award next month.

VDOT started the Knowledge Management program in 2003 because it faced a common challenge -- a middle-age work force becoming eligible for retirement. In the next five years, 30 percent of the VDOT work force is expected to retire. Similar statistics keep us up nights at the Northrop Grumman shipyard, too. These are the most experienced people in the work force, able to draw on years of dealing with the same issue and often able to rely on their memories with no need to refer to the handbooks. Some of the things they know are not even in the handbooks. How do you transfer that knowledge to a new generation of shipbuilders and road builders?

VDOT USES THE Community of Practice model to try to capture that unrecorded and unpublished knowledge, and has formed 40 Communities of Practice (CoP) to date. The teams are focused on an issue or a process, not on a region or a department. Some seek to record best practices and lessons learned that can be shared, and some seek to improve the process. The teams cut across geography and job function because so does the work and so do the problems, and no solution will work unless everybody buys in. They break down the traditional stovepipes for information, which inefficient operations tend to guard and protect as a survival mechanism. They are willing to reach out beyond the existing work force, as they did in consulting retired engineers about the best practices for maintaining old metal truss bridges. The results are evaluated on the same basis we would use here at the shipyard -- return on investment.

In 2006 an internal survey of VDOT employees who had participated in a CoP found that they understood the value of bringing together the people from across the agency who had the same objective but different agendas, so they could look for a consensus solution. And they felt confident that if they did come up with a good idea, the top management would put it into practice. Seventeen projects produced final products judged to be of value to the agency in 2006, and 20 more in 2007.

A new Project Record-Keeping System (PRKS) is expected to save each inspector on average one hour per week, saving $500,000 per year. A team discovered that sharing resources across districts and utility departments can reduce the use of outside consultants, saving at least $1.4 million. Half a million here, a million and a half there -- pretty soon that adds up to real money.

THE COMMUNITY of Practice concept is something we have strongly adopted here at the shipyard, but we didn't invent it. Process excellence, continuous improvement, and value streams are a key part of every successful business enterprise these days. While there may be other cost reduction strategies that VDOT could adopt, this is one area that reaps multiple benefits, many not able to be precisely calculated.

VDOT should be applauded for taking the initiative to provide services while keeping an eye on reducing costs. All good companies do exactly that -- look for improvements and cost reductions while maintaining the same levels of service. VDOT, however, is not the only governmental agency that should look at efficiencies. The rest of state government should follow VDOT's lead and benefit from a basic introduction to efficiency ideas like knowledge management, value streams, and continuous improvement.
William R. Ermatinger is vice president for human resources and administration at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding in Newport News, and serves on the Virginia Council on Human Resources. Contact him at (757) 380-3558 or visit www.nn.northropgrumman.com.