OKC-Based American Fidelity Places Second at International Lean Best Practices Awards
Wednesday, July 02, 2014
American Fidelity Assurance Company (AFA) recently placed second at the International Lean Best Practices Awards presented by the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). Lean is a systematic, disciplined approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement.
The award recognizes innovative and effective implementation of team Lean principles and practices that deliver exemplary business performance improvement. Out of the entries, four organizations are selected to present at an international conference and vie for the top award. Other finalists for this year’s competition included first-place winner Jabil, based in Shanghai; TADA, based in India; and IBM, based in the U.S. IIE is a global association of productivity and efficiency professionals specializing in industrial engineering, healthcare, ergonomics and other related professions.
"It is thrilling to be able to share AFA's Lean journey with an international audience and to be asked for advice from huge international companies after our presentation. I am honored to represent Oklahoma and every AFA Colleague who has spent weeks learning to be a Lean Facilitator, every manager who has taken a deep breath and let the Lean core team make a change that they were not sure of, and every Lean core team member that has learned to think differently to help the organization improve and better serve our Customers," said Paula Liotine, process improvement team leader for AFA.
AFA’s Lean team works with Colleagues throughout the Company to streamline and improve processes. Completed projects include claims processing, new hire set-up, product development, Customer enrollment, Colleague assessments, job posting and many more. These projects help simplify processes for Colleagues and Customers, helping Colleagues focus more on serving Customers rather than administrative tasks and making it easier for Customers to enroll or make a claim.