Background
A Berkshire Hathaway company requested an assessment of their 16+ year, mature Lean Six Sigma deployment. While the program had a solid track record of success, the leadership was looking to increase the value of the program and also energize it with some new methods.
Solution
Using Firefly’s Operational Excellence Assessment Framework, the team performed a top-down assessment of the organization including 60+ interviews, a survey of Black Belt and Green Belt alumni, and visited manufacturing plants. Additionally, the team reviewed project data, manufacturing data, and training materials. All information was synthesized and compared with industry best practices.
Results
While there were hundreds of improvement ideas, a few major themes of opportunity were uncovered to energize the program and drive additional value. They included detailed recommendations around: 1) Initiating an OpEx led program focusing on inventory reductions, to address a multi-million dollar financial opportunity that was identified in the assessment. 2) Re-energizing the 500+ legacy BBs and 1500+ legacy GBs by offering innovation tools and expanding their capabilities. 3) Deploying a Lean Foundations approach in the manufacturing sites, supply chain and finance, engaging the entire workforce in improvement.
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