Don’t let its intimidating reputation deceive you: Lean Six Sigma’s principles are based on common sense and discipline. Here, you can learn about the everyday successes of organizations that use Lean Six Sigma.
Project Summary The Challenge: Development stopped for 7 days during every Content Management System (CMS) release cycle. The Discovery: The CMS architecture did not allow for code development while new code was being tested and released. The Improvements: They cleaned up existing Quality Assurance (QA) environments, set up dedicated Development…
Project Summary The Challenge: UC San Diego students’ accounts were being sent to collections before they ever received Final Notice Letters—leaving them no time to react. The Discovery: The time it took the Student Business Services Department to produce, stuff and mail Final Notice Letters varied greatly, with a median…
Project Summary The Challenge: It took UC San Diego 3-5 months to assign 2,500 classes The Discovery: 4 of 15 major tasks took 75% of the total time The Improvements: They eliminated the need for thousands of emails and phone calls The Results: Reduced wait time by 75% Reduced process…
Project Summary The Challenge: Production was unable to keep up with customer demand The Discovery: Lots of waste and a lack of standardization The Improvements: Reduced wasted transportation, created parallel processes and standardized the processes The Results: 58% increase in production capacity and a $263K reduction in annual energy cost…
Project Summary The Challenge: The employee onboarding process took as long as 20 to 104 days The Discovery: The hiring process generated 13,248 emails which took 662 hours The Improvements: The shortened the form, created a guide and standardized emails The Results: Saved over 1,000 hours of work—or the equivalent…
The Challenge Missing the deadline to process warranty claims means automatic approval and money lost—and Marel had missed the deadline for 13 of the last 18 months. Marel, a leading food processing equipment manufacturer, had been missing their customer-promised 60-day timeline in 13 of the last 18 months. When they…
A late event approval means campus planners are given short notice, crippling their ability to stage concerts, festivals or even simple barbecues. Last year 82% of the 300 food-only events at UC San Diego received a late final review—that’s over three quarters missing the deadline! The Challenge On average, approvals…
A call center for a business equipment and supplies company had call transfer rates well over 20% and customer dissatisfaction trending in the wrong direction. High transfer rates in a call center are an indication that customers are talking to multiple agents and their issues are taking way too long…
Teresa Dickey and her team saved hundreds of work hours and $400,000 in soft savings after using DMAIC to identify and eliminate waste in a process in this Lean Six Sigma Success Story. The Challenge Kern County, California had a juvenile probation violation problem. The problem wasn’t the kids—it was…
The Challenge New projects for King County mean new grants and new cost centers. But setting up cost centers was taking too long and nothing could proceed without the new cost center. There were customers waiting over 30 days—and some 80 days—to have their forms processed. Megan Rulien, an Administrator…