The Rapid Action Track Record
- Over 5,000 Applications
- Successes in all Major Sectors: Manufacturing; Services; Healthcare; Government; Emerging Businesses; and Not-For-Profit.
- Average Cycle-Time to Rapid Action Team Completion: 60 Days!
- Average Annualized Financial Returns Per Rapid Action Team: $50,000
It’s been called the best kept secret for making a good thing better! And the Rapid Action track record supports this accolade.
Browse the Case Studies below to review how Rapid Action is accelerating Lean Six Sigma returns across a wide variety of deployments.
 NewPage Corporation: The Fortune 500 paper products company and winner of the 2009 Most Successful Lean Six Sigma Start-up Program awarded by iSixSigma, has made Rapid Action Tools a core element of its innovative Lean Six Sigma Deployment. |
Mosaic Company: The world’s largest phosphate fertilizer producer (recently honored with the top award for Best Process Improvement Project Completed in 90-Days by the International Quality & Productivity Center) has seamlessly integrated Rapid Action tools into its Lean Six Sigma projects. |
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How do you engage employees in a highly unionized operation, improve the “hit rate” of newly trained Green Belts and get a return on Lean Six Sigma Deployment right out of the gate?
For NewPage Corporation the answer was to build Rapid Action Tools into its Lean Six Sigma Deployment from day one. Black and Green Belts alike begin their Lean Six Sigma training by learning the Rapid Action Process and Tools. Successfully leading a 60-day Rapid Action Project is the toll-gate for graduating to advanced tools training.
This master-the-basics-first approach has improved NewPage’s return on Belt investment while adding significant benefits to the results line. In three years of deployment, more than 300 Rapid Action Teams have produced documented savings in excess of $13,000,000. Rapid Action Teams have averaged of $64,000 in hard financial gains while engaging over 1,500 frontline employees in projects related to safety, customer service, energy conservation and more.
Mosaic has been invested in Lean Six Sigma since its founding in 2004 when Cargill and International Minerals Corporation merged operations. However, Mosaic has taken a different approach to continuous improvement by deploying an innovative, “hybrid” version of Lean Six Sigma that leverages a small staff of Black Belts trained in advanced data analysis tools along with training in the 60-day Rapid Action Process that taps the knowledge and creativity of frontline workers.
In 2008 alone, Mosaic used this Rapid Lean Six Sigma approach to deploy more than 45 teams, engage over 500 employees and deliver close to $25 million in financial benefits to the company’s bottom line with a staff of one Master Black Belt and two Black Belts.
One of Mosaic’s Rapid Action Teams, called “The Wingate Floaters”, was commissioned to improve rock recovery at Mosaic’s Wingate Creek Mining Operation in Central Florida. The Black Belt assigned to coach the team of mining operators, mechanics, lab techs and supervisors facilitated a process mapping and cause and effect analysis to focus attention on the most leveraged areas for exploring rock recovery improvement opportunities.
From there the Rapid Action Team took the reigns by brainstorming and testing ideas using a disciplined process that balances “out of the box” thinking with practical cost/benefit analysis. The team considered over 40 improvement ideas and took immediate action on several of the most promising.
Within 30 days, the level of rock recovery improved from 47% to over 68% … the result of simple changes in the production process that only those close to the operation could see. Annualized gains from this team alone were documented at more than $12 million.
According to Joe Gliksman, Mosaic’s Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Rapid Action Teams are a results-multiplier for his small, but experienced cadre of Black Belts. “We’re a data driven operation that lends itself well to process analysis tools and that’s where our Black Belts make a difference. But when it comes to finding and implementing solutions our frontline people are the experts. With the Rapid Action Team Process, our Black Belts can quickly mobilize employee teams to action with minimal disruption to schedules and staffing. We point them in the right direction and they do the work with Rapid Action Tools that keep them focused and on track.”
As Gliksman says. “There are a lot of tools in the Lean Six Sigma toolbox and they each have value. But for us, the Rapid Action Tools always get the most wear.”
Like most businesses, Valspar Corporation has moved quickly in response to the economic downturn. But rather than downsize its successful Lean Six Sigma Deployment, Valspar choose to "up the ante" by challenging its Deployment Team to find more hard dollar savings by engaging more frontline employees in rapid problem solving and best practices replication.
Dave Hart, Valspar's Lean Six Sigma Deployment Leader, chose Leap to assist the effort based on his prior experience with using Rapid Action Tools at NewPage Corporation. Hart recruited a group of experienced Black Belts to tackle the challenge of planning, launching and completing 10 Rapid Action Cost Saving Projects within 60 days.
With the assistance of Leap Partner Mike Pecoraro, Valspar conducted a three-day action learning workshop where the Black Belts learned the Rapid Action Team Process and applied the tools to design specific project charters for the initial wave of cost saving teams.
Within two weeks after the workshop, most of the Rapid Action Teams had been launched engaging more than 50 Valspar frontline employees without the need for additional classroom training. After an initial half-day meeting to get started, the Valspar Rapid Action Teams are meeting weekly (in some cases by tele-conference) to find cost savings in areas such as energy usage, material flow, raw materials inventory, supplies ordering and use, etc.
This initial wave of Rapid Aciton Teams produced savings in excess of $1.5 million in just over 60 days. Based on the success, Dave Hart earned Valspar leadership's support to train all Lean Six Sigma Belts in Rapid Action Tools. As Hart says "Rapid Action came at just the right time to help our Lean Six Sigma Deployment meaintain momentum and responsiveness to the needs of the business."
