UC Davis Project Highlights

Continuous Improvement Projects

Discover how UC Davis teams are transforming the way we work. These real-world projects highlight how individuals and teams have applied Lean principles and continuous improvement tools to streamline processes, boost efficiency, and deliver measurable results across departments and functions. 

See continuous improvement in action and get inspired by the impact it's making across UC Davis.

Additional project summaries available in the Continuous Improvement Showcase Gallery Walk. 

2026 Projects - In Progress

Category	Project Title	Project Lead(s)	Area	Description	Overview
Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Streamlining Recruitment: From Interview Through Offer	Victoria Ostergar and Sachi Veilu	Student Affairs	Student affairs recruitments take an average of 92 days from application to accepted offer, leaving positions vacant And increasing the risk that qualified candidates lose interest or accept other positions. This project focuses on streamlining recruitment using standardized tools, dashboards, and online resources.
Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Optimization of Cardiac Monitoring on the Hospital Medicine Faculty Service	Ivonne Martinez & Anita Singh	UCD Health - Internal Medicine	Cardiac telemetry is frequently continued beyond clinically appropriate indications. Prolonged telemetry use contributes to unnecessary utilization of monitored beds, increased healthcare costs, alarm fatigue, and inefficiencies in patient flow. This project aims to reduce average telemetry hours per patient through guideline-based monitoring, provider education, and EHR decision support.
Service Delivery	Standardizing Pre- Employment & Onboarding Workflows for Leadership and Complex Hires	Ashley Duba & Delmy Torres	FOA - Human Resources	Physician and leadership onboarding currently averages five weeks, with process inefficiencies caused by fragmented workflows, unclear accountability, and inconsistent communication that create delays, rework, and poor stakeholder experiences. The goal of this project is to improve physician and leadership onboarding through standardized workflows, dashboards, communications, and role clarity.
Service Delivery	Missed Class Make-Up Process	Sara Gorrell	Continuing & Professional Education	For two courses, the missed-class make-up process relies heavily on manual, back-and-forth email communication. As request volume has increased, the process has resulted in delayed responses, incomplete student follow-through, and added administrative effort. This process aims to improve the make-up request process by simplifying forms, reducing manual communication, and enabling more self-service scheduling.
Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Digital Workspace Efficiency Improvement Project	Vicki Gracia	College of Engineering	Box folders used by Biomedical Engineering research administrators have inconsistent structures, duplicate and outdated files, and unclear naming conventions. This makes critical documents difficult to locate, wastes staff time, and increases the risk. This project focuses on standardizing Box folder practices to improve document organization and retrieval.
Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Projection Sheet Generation	Dinesh Kumar	College of Engineering	Project expenditure projections require manual updates across multiple Excel sources, taking approximately 20 hours per quarter to prepare, update and review. The process in time-consuming, difficult to review and increases the risk of errors. The goal of this project is to centralized data used for projection sheets to eliminate manual cross checking across multiple files.
Digital Automation	Standardized Patient Inquiry to Audition Process Improvement	Haydee Pineda Johnson	UCD Health	Standardized Patient (SP) inquiries submitted through the shared program email experienced delayed and inconsistent follow-up – at times approximately three weeks – due to a minimal, non-standardized intake process. This project focuses on standardizing and automating the SP workflow using Airtable, automated emails, and standardized communication.
Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Perioperative Recruitment Request Standardization	Aimee Lynn Reyes	UCD Health - Perioperative	100% of Perioperative recruitment requests require administrative rework due to missing required information, documentation, or recruitment details. This results in an average of 45 minutes of administrative rework per request, delaying initiation of recruitment actions and diverting time away from higher-value tasks. This project aims to reduce the request rework to less than 25% using centralized digital submission processes and error-proofed workflows.

• Highlights from Prior Years

• Category	Project Title	Project Lead(s)	Area	Description	Overview
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Streamline the Payroll Process for Aggie Host Security Officers	Andrey Furmuzan, Carlee Gnos	FOA - Business Partners and Human Resources	Students and staff were collectively spending over 30 hours every two weeks on inefficient and time-intensive activities to manage timesheets. This project resulted in a 75% reduction in workload, and $50K in annual savings.
  Service Delivery	Increasing Efficiency in the Student Recruitment Process	Ethel Campaigne, Jennifer Long	CA&ES - Distributed Shared Services Center	The student recruitment process is complex and follows an inconsistent timeline, averaging 15 days from initial intake to job posting. This project focuses on standardizing the process to reduce cycle time, and increase customer and employee satisfaction.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Standardize CA&ES Access and Space Request Process	Jessica Gray	College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences	There is no standardized process for handling access (e.g., key cards and AggieAccess) or space requests, resulting in misrouted or delayed requests, and inefficiencies. This project aims to standardize the process to increase routing accuracy and decrease turnaround time.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	MOU Process Optimization	Sheri Kuslak-Meyer	College of Engineering - Biomedical Engineering	Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) management currently consumes ~200 hours of leadership time annually. Variability in documentation and tracking practices leads to avoidable delays, rework, and unrealized revenue. This project establishes a standard data strategy and explores automation to improve efficiency.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Implementing the Project Management Base in Airtable	Harsimran Singh	Continuing and Professional Education	Project updates for Continuing and Professional Education (CPE) programs are frequently late, inconsistent, or unclear because tracking is spread across multiple tools with no standard workflow. This project focuses on implementing Project Management Airtable Base to improve new project setup compliance and on time project updates.
  Service Delivery	Increase Data Integrity in Constituent Opt-In Mail Coding	Kami Brewer-Pozzi	Development & Alumni Relations	Multiple online forms are used to collect alumni and constituent opt-in preferences for newsletters and affinity networks. These opt-ins have not consistently transferred into the primary database, resulting in lost engagement opportunities. This project aims to improve completeness and inclusion of opt-in records.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Improving the FOA Personnel Action Form (PAF) Process	Sofia Dunn	FOA - Administrative Innovation and Technology - FOA HR BP	Using multiple systems in the PAF process requires manual, duplicate entries, increasing workload and risk of error, as well as creating a lack of real-time visibility into request status. This project aims to reduce wasted labor hours, and improve visibility for customers and approvers.
  Service Delivery	Cardiac Arrest Prevention in the Pediatric Cardiac ICU	Ryan Palapaz, MD	School of Medicine	For the past 5 years, the rate of in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) in the pediatric cardiac Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has been high within the first two days after cardiac surgery, leading to significant morbidity, mortality, and utilization of resources. This project improves education and team communication to support prevention, early recognition, appropriate notification, and timely intervention.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Academic Personnel Open Recruitment Process Improvement	Jen Bozant & Lynn Yang	School of Medicine	The average time from a department’s submission of a search plan to acceptance of a tentative offer by the final candidate has exceeded 8.7 months, including an average of 31 days total processing time in Recruit. This project aims to reduce the average total cycle time to 6.5 months, achieving a 25% reduction by the end of FY 2026.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Reducing Timesheet Errors	Tricia Lim	UC Davis Health - Perioperative	Over the past 6 months there have been 100 errors in the Perioperative Services Division timesheets, resulting in an increase in overtime, employees receiving incorrect pay, and employee frustration. This project explores why errors are occurring and aims to reduce the error rate by 50%.
  Service Delivery	Reduce Urology Rx Prior Authorization (PA) Denials	Stacy Knox, PharmD	UC Davis Health - Pharmacy	The current insurance denial rate for Urology Clinic PAs for PDE5-I medications of 45% is higher than our benchmark denial rate of ~35% for the same medications for other clinics (e.g., Primary Care). The goal of this project is to decrease the denial rate by 10% to align with benchmark rates.
  Service Delivery	Health Navigator Workflow Standardization for Emergency Dept (ED)	Miriam Merajee	UC Davis Health - Transitions of Care & Emergency Department	Between July 2024 and Sept. 2025, 12.7% of ED patients discharged from the ED have 4 or more encounters in the ED within 12 months, returning due to not being provided enough discharge instructions or care coordination prior to leaving. This project focuses on Health Navigator engagement to determine if interventions reduce repeat ED high utilizers.
  Digital Automation	Budget Process Improvement	Tiffany Wright	FOA - Budget and Institutional Analysis	The campus budget process affects every operational unit, yet the time spent on it varies widely. This project works to streamline, standardize, and automate the process—reducing effort and improving consistency.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Enhancing Customer Satisfaction by Reducing Project Request Turnaround Time	Aruna Chetty	School of Medicine	Users and PIs can experience delays of up to six months for new project orders in the Biostatistics Shared Resource (BSR) PPMS, often due to incomplete or redundant templates. These delays create challenges for customer satisfaction. This project aims to shorten turnaround times and enhance the overall customer experience.
  Service Delivery	Improve Life Sciences Purchasing Efficiencies	Maura McLoughlin	FOA - Supply Chain Management	Department buyers for Life Sciences purchases often face confusion when choosing between the SSPR and SBF waiver forms, resulting in errors about 30% of the time. These errors cause processing delays and customer frustration. This project aims to increase correct form usage, speeding up processing and improving customer satisfaction.
  Service Delivery	Improving Timeliness of Computer Deployments	Elissa Roeser, Melanie Clague, Prosper Godonoo, Steve Pigg	College of Engineering	College of Engineering computer deployments are delayed, averaging 10 business days instead of the 2-day target. This project aims to speed up deployment, reduce frustration, and help users become productive sooner.
  Service Delivery	Last Mile Initiative	Jen Carmichael	FOA - Supply Chain Management	Vendor delivery on campus average 1-3 packages per stop and are performed by unknown persons. Project goals include reducing carbon footprint while increasing package delivery per stop.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	MEDComp Benefits Payment Process Cycle Time Reduction	Priya Venkatesan	FOA-Office of Business Transformation	Reduce processing and payment of MEDCOMP benefits; improving customer satisfaction and reducing manual effort of Benefits staff.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Improve NIFA Reporting Compliance	Maggie Gonzalez	School of Veterinary Medicine	Improve compliance rates with annual National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) reporting.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Partner Onboarding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Process	Erin Silva	Office of Chancellor and Provost	Improve the turnaround time for MOU process, explore automation and develop standard work.
  Digital Automation	Personnel Action Form	Jody Hyde	DEVAR	Reduce the processing time and improve efficiency for pay-related action within Development and Alumni Relations by implementing a SharePoint form that automates data collection and approval routing.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Reduce Recruiting Advertising Budget	Charlie Conselman, Sarah Banchieri	FOA-Human Resources	Reduce advertising budget for recruitment tools and identify more strategic uses to reallocate savings.
  Digital Automation	Reduce Volume of cases for general questions	Andrey Furmuzan	FOA-Business Partners	Explore AI tools to reduce the number of cases (e.g., tickets) created for general questions.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Streamlining Effort Allocation Process	Sumeet Hothi	School of Medicine	Improve the tracking of effort allocations in the Violent Prevention Research Program (VPRP).
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Talent Acquisition Budget Management Enhancement	Martin Serrano	FOA-Human Resources	Optimize use of budget for role that take longer time-to-fill. Project aims to improve time-to-fill and increase satisfaction.
  Administrative and Operational Efficiency	Update Youth Protection Waiver Process	Courtney Merson	Continuing and Professional Education	Improve the waiver collection process for youth programs at UC Davis; enhance customer satisfaction and revenue generation.
  Service Delivery	Website Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction	BreAnda Northcutt	FOA-Communications	Enhance website visitor experience by automating site analysis, content audit and regular feedback collection.