Case Study

Background

After several years of rapid growth, a top tier electronic component distributor began missing same day shipment commitments. The increasing growth also negatively impacted both shipment quality and customer service. This resulted in lost customers and significant internal costs to expedite and reship parts. The distributor wanted to reduce operational headaches, while scaling the business for continued growth.

Solution

The program began with an assessment to identify quick win and longer-term improvement opportunities. This quickly transitioned to a series of Kaizen events that our team executed to remove major bottlenecks. Building on the success of the first Kaizen events, the distributor launched a Green Belt program. Over the next two years, 4 waves of Green Belts and 2 waves of Black Belts were trained and projects successfully completed.

Results

The improvements from the Kaizen events in the product distribution center quickly increased capacity and reduced both wrong and late shipments. This reduced internal costs and improved customer satisfaction. Additional benefits in quality and employee satisfaction are driving future growth. The Lean Six Sigma deployment has realized greater than 20X ROI annually.

Want to see results like this at your company? Contact our team to learn more.