LEAN Sigma Professionals is a firm focused on taking a practical approach to implementing business improvements utilizing the LEAN Six Sigma methodology. Our focus is on business results, speed and sustainability. In addition to leading business improvement projects, we can also provide group training for Green Belt and Black Belt certification and/or individual training and mentoring on live projects.

Situation: A client was changing their time and attendance tracking systems impacting approximately 5,000 employees. If not properly executed, the change had the potential to cause significant administrative issues and/or legal exposure.Action: Created and executed communications plan across four separate locations and 3 distinct employee types. Plan included posters, e-mails, newsletters, intranet articles and handouts. Result: Transition from existing Time and Attendance system to new system accomplished on time and with minimal disruption to the business.

Situation: Lead multiple engagements with one of the largest transportation/delivery organizations in the United States while coaching an employee seeking their Black Belt certification. The focus of the projects was to improve the operations at unionized processing facilities to achieve SLAs without incurring additional operating expense. Action: Documented existing processes, identified operational weaknesses, determined improvement options, and facilitated implementation of recommended course of action. Modified internal processing operations, transportation network and procedures on the receiving ramp. Result: Significant improvement in SLAs. Requested by client to replicate projects at additional facility.

Situation: Recruited to help Consumer Bank leadership prioritize efforts to bring the organization into compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering requirements of the US Patriot Act. Also assisted with other regulatory requests as needed.Actions: Documented product application and approval processes across multiple consumer banking products to drive towards consistent data capturing and storing processes. Developed new measurement system to understand the current level of effectiveness for a major risk identification process within the banking centers. Result: Methodology successfully presented to regulators.

Situation: Maersk Inc.’s Senior Management wanted to obtain a market premium by providing superior service to their customers. This required a culture change de-emphasizing steamship line thinking and stressing end-to-end container delivery. Barriers to success included the inflated perception of current performance and the belief that it was impossible to improve service without adding significant costs. Action: Led the creation and socialization of service delivery metrics based on the customer’s point of view by combining information from numerous IT systems into a single view providing end-to-end transit visibility at the container level. Result: Methodology eventually adopted globally and used to support various improvement initiatives.Action: Used the new measurement system to drill down to a small piece of the network that was experiencing delays. Quantified the impact to the overall metric by improving this small operation. Result: Received approval to expand team in order to implement Process Excellence (Six Sigma).Action: Assembled a plan to improve overall service delivery without adding incremental operating costs to the system. Trained the local leadership on the use of some basic Six Sigma/LEAN tools. Constructed an end-to-end process flow that identified pools of defects and guided the business unit’s finance team in quantifying the impact to the overall system of removing the waste. Result: Coached multiple Six Sigma Green Belt projects lasting between 6-9 months. Cumulative annual savings of $9.3 Million.

Situation: Worked with Merchant Services to utilize Six Sigma in developing and executing a growth strategy. At the time there was resistance to the thought of applying Six Sigma to a “Sales” function. Action: Led creation of measurement system that captured the opportunities each sales representative had in her market and the percentage eventually processing transactions with the bank. Result: Measurement system put into production as the “Business Opportunity Report” and used to evaluate the sales force and support improvement efforts.Action: Used measurement system to highlight the stable results among individuals. Supporting thesis they were doing something consistent and generating predictable results. Result: Received approval to initiate Six Sigma improvement projects in one-half of the sales regions.Action: Enrolled 8 Regional Sales Managers in Six Sigma training and coached them through their Green Belt certification. Result: Cumulative incremental revenue of $1.8 million annually. Received Six Sigma Black Belt certification.

Situation: Asked to manage the Card Services Payment Research Team which had been incurring annual Non-Credit Losses of approximately $5 million and the backlog of research cases was growing.Action: Redesigned the research/resolution process to decrease the amount of time required to identify where incorrect payments actually posted. Result: Non-Credit Losses decreased from approximately $5 million annually to $500K for an annual savings of $4.5 million. Reduced the number and dollar amount of cases aged over 30 days to a negligible amount. Result: Once the backlog was addressed, the organization was able to reduce its size from 120 associates to only 95 for an additional savings of $600K.

Managed a small team of finance professionals whose primary role was supporting the new Six Sigma initiative within Bank of America. This position required coordination with different business units to quickly understand their operations and cost drivers.Primary finance support for first team of Six Sigma Black Belts deployed throughout Bank of America. Role involved quantifying the financial benefit associated with numerous Six Sigma projects. Upon completion of projects ensured business units updated their operating plans to reflect the new cost structure of their operations.

Held different roles within Strategic Planning advancing from Analyst to Director in 2 years. Role focused on infrastructure development and vessel network optimization. At the time Sea-Land was cash constrained so development required creative financing options. Action: Created and successfully defended the financial valuation of a container terminal in Australia for partial monetization. Result: Proceeds from partial sale enabled Sea-Land Service to invest $2.4 million in the terminal while still achieving a positive cash impact.Performed scenario analyses regarding potential vessel deployments to maximize value of new transshipment facility in Salalah, Oman.Constructed numerous multi-year investment models to evaluate capital expenditure proposals on the basis of their economic value, cash flow and impact on other financial statements.