Michael Marx

   Six Sigma Slogan: Pleasant and Happy Changes For POSCO, Six Sigma is not merely a series of projects to be completed, but a potent tool for management reform designed to help reach business objectives, change corporate culture, and present the most ideal solutions for every business issue. 2004 Annual Report POSCO, the South Korean […]

Burlington Northern Santa Fe, one of the largest Railroads in the United States, has developed a system called World Class Maintenance (WCM) which includes several methodologies including Six Sigma and Lean Process. In September 2002 BNSF CEO, Matthew Rose, spoke at the AREMA conference in Washington D.C. In his address here viewed the WCM system […]

Six Sigma at CSX is a GE success story. What started out as a GE “At the Customer for the Customer” engagement, turned into a corporate-wide deployment of Six Sigma at one of the leading transportation companies in the United States. Bill Smith, National Account Executive at GE Transportation Systems, tells the story best in […]

Fortune 1000 and Global 500 companies in the Transportation and Logistics industry that are practicing Six Sigma: Burlington Northern Santa Fe CNF CSX Corporation FedEx Norfolk Southern Sirva Union Pacific United Parcel Service United States Postal Service

In October 2000 Norfolk Southern began an initiative called “Norfolk Southern for the 21st Century” (NS21). NS21 is an internal effort to improve performance, focus on customer service, and reduce costs. Six Sigma is used in conjunction with NS21 and has helped the railroad giant become one data-driven locomotive! In 2003 Norfolk Southern refocused the […]

Lockheed Martin has been using Six Sigma and Lean since the late 90s. Like many other companies the early use of the methodologies took place in small pockets around the company without a centralized effort. Then in 1999 Lockheed Martin started the LM21 initiative. LM21 stands for Lockheed Martin in the 21st Century and is […]

Union Pacific (UP) has been using the Six Sigma methodology for a number of years to increase customer satisfaction, reduce failures, and conserve energy. Last year Thomas A. Myers, Michael Carver, and Dr. Michael Echols wrote a case study describing how UP reduced the cost of training Six Sigma Black Belts by partnering with Bellevue […]

Patricia Collins wrote an article in the September/October 2005 issue of iSixSigma Magazine titled, “Better Business Leaders.” Patricia is the senior deployment champion for Merrill Lynch’s enterprise-wide Six Sigma program. The article details Merrill Lynch’s unique approach to leadership development through Six Sigma. “The goal is not only to give the company’s future business leaders […]

Recently EMC began an initiative called Total Customer Experience (TCE) and Six Sigma is at the heart of it. Six Sigma at EMC is driven from the top as an enterprise-wide initiative. EMC President, CEO, and Green Belt candidate, Joe Tucci, recently spoke about TCE and Six Sigma at the EMC Technology Summit in New […]

Xerox has a successful history applying Lean Manufacturing techniques in their operations since the early 90s. In 1998 Six Sigma was introduced in various manufacturing and supply chain operations. Although these operations achieved efficiencies, the scope of the deployment was limited. In 2002, Six Sigma and Lean were integrated and driven as a corporate-wide strategy. […]

Autoliv makes the world a safer place. Simply put, their products save lives. They are a leading manufacturer of auto safety products, and supply all the leading auto makersthroughout the world. Quality is vital when it comes to life and Autoliv is living up to their name. Modeled after the Toyota Production System (TPS), Autoliv […]

Avery Dennison began using Six Sigma in the Fasson Roll operation in 1998. It didn’t take long for the initiative to stick, and it soon spread throughout the company. Today, Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing are the foundation for driving productivity improvements across the company. The annual reports and press releases continually highlight the impact […]

The Consumer Products industry sector containsa wide array of industries: Apparel, Home Equipment and Furnishings, Household and Personal Products, Textiles, Tobacco, Toys and Sporting Goods. Listed below are Fortune 1000 companies in these industries (broadly labeled “Consumer Products”) that are using Six Sigma. 3M Alberto-Culver Clorox Colgate-Palmolive Estée Lauder Kimberly-Clark Masco Newell Rubbermaid Procter & […]

Barclays is just starting out on their Six Sigma journey. They began their initiative just over a year ago and were recently recognized with a Six Sigma Excellence award in the category “Best Defect Elimination in a Service & Transaction Project.” Chris Lorimer, Head of Supplier and Service Improvement at Barclays International and Private Bank, […]

LG Electronics (LGE), part of South Korea’s LG Group, was the first LG company to embrace Six Sigma back in 1996 (about the same time as GE). As shown in the timeline below (2000 Annual Report), LGE has a solid history of innovation activities and quality improvement activities dating back to 1989. Since 2000, LGE […]

McKesson is the largest pharmaceuticals distributor in the United States. While they do not manufacture drugs or supply healthcare services, they are the leading provider of supply, information, and care management products to the entire healthcare industry. In the words of McKesson’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, John Hammergren, “McKesson is helping transform healthcare into […]

The Healthcare Sector includes the following Fortune 1000 industries: Medical Products & Equipment, Pharmacy and Other Services, Healthcare-Medical Facilities, and Wholesalers-Healthcare. The Healthcare-Insurance industry is included in the Insurance Industry List. Fortune 1000 Healthcare Companies practicing Six Sigma: Bausch & Lomb Baxter International Becton Dickinson Boston Scientific Cardinal Health McKesson Medtronic Quest Diagnostics St. Jude […]

James McNerney hints at what’s to come at Boeing duringyesterday’s Second Quarter 2005 Earningsconference call with analysts and journalists: “Boeing has very strong pockets of process improvement, quality, technology sharing and leverage, sourcing, management development and more. We plan to take those that have the most company-wide impact on growth and company productivity and drive […]

In 2001 Countrywide Financial launched an internally developed, proprietary program called FASTER. The six step methodology (Flow, Analyze, Solve, Target, Execute, and Review) is modeled after Six Sigmaand specifically designed for the financial services environment. FASTER as well as the customer satisfaction program PACE (Proudly Achieving Customer Expectations) are both helping Countrywide improve all aspects […]

In an interview in 2004 with Alsom’s Cindy Kortebein, VP of Business Processes, Environmental Control Systems (ECS), James Works, President, George Group, learns how Six Sigma is working its way through Alstom: “JW: Tell me about Six Sigma deployment at Alstom. “CK: Alstom has really made a concerted effort to step up the deployment especially […]

SixSigmaCompanies.com is going global! With the release of Fortune’s 2005 Global 500 list, I am now posting reviews of Six Sigmacompanies world-wide. As Six Sigma deployment models differ from company to company and corporate culture to corporate culture, they also differ country to country, culture to culture. Steve Crom has written two articles on the […]

Six Sigma has been growing slowly but surely over the years at HSBC . The Six Sigma deployment model of the United Kingdom based banking corporation is best described as the “middle-out” approach in Michael Cyger’s blog entry, “Are All Six Sigma Deployment Models Created Equal”. Recently, HSBC won the Six Sigma Excellence award for […]

Hesh Reinfeld, a Pittsburgh-based business columnist and humorist wrote a column yesterday about improving the quality of his columns: “When my readers question the quality of my columns, I don’t look to the subjective evaluations of an editor. No, I call my six sigma black belt, Harry, for help. “Harry has worked on process improvement […]

Lean Six Sigma surfaced at Brunswick in 2003. Since then it has not merely been sailing along but is powering throughout the company like a Maxum 2400SR3 cruising atop a pristine body of blue. The boating, billiards and bowlingindustriesare very competitive. With noroom toscratch or throw a gutter ball, Brunswick isusing Lean Six Sigma to […]