Application of lean management principles to election systems

Lean was first adopted as a management technique for improving results in manufacturing environments. It is based on the 5 principles of identifying the Value to be created, mapping the Value-Stream (incremental addition of value), ensuring process Flow, orienting the process towards the Pull of the customer and finally eliminating all Waste through a process of continuous improvement. This framework is highly adaptable, and has been applied in recent years to non-manufacturing efforts, such as product development and the retail and service industries. We explore the application of Lean to voting. Applications can be found in the phases of technology development, production, deployment, poll management and more. By following a structured approach based on Lean, the efforts to advance voting solutions in the US can gain in efficiency, security, privacy and credibility over their current state. These will be adapted to deal with the voting environment, which imposes a unique set of challenges and follows priorities different from normal corporations. Additional Lean elements, such as eliminating irregularities through standardization, improved training and process transparency will be reviewed.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Posner, Tomer

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ted Selker and Thomas Sheridan.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35633

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35633