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Textron Six Sigma

Customers come first. Always. It's a philosophy that drives everything we do at Textron. Integral to that philosophy is Textron Six Sigma, a disciplined, data-driven process designed to eliminate waste, reduce variation and drive growth throughout our company. It consists of a proven set of tools and techniques that Textron businesses apply in a consistent, systematic fashion to delight customers and strengthen our business.

We began rolling out this rigorous process improvement initiative in 2002. The result: We have trained numerous Black Belts and Green Belts to lead Textron Six Sigma projects throughout our businesses. The bottom line improvements and cultural change continues to impact the business in meaningful ways.

Grow and Innovate

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is one of the three major elements of Textron Six Sigma and the one that's most directly tied to meeting customer requirements. Through DFSS, we identify what our customers need and deliver it in a way that exceeds customer expectations. DFSS is a proven way to develop top quality products, services and processes that are right the first time, faster, and cost efficient. At Textron, we are combining the key principles of DFSS with a common method for designing all new products and services across the enterprise.

Reduce Variability

This Textron Six Sigma focus area focuses on reducing the variation within processes. Our customers feel the extremes/variation in delivery, cost and quality. It doesn't help our customer if we say that our average delivery is "on time" but the customer receives half of the deliveries early and the other half late. As we work to improve the processes that impact our customers, reducing variation is a key to customer satisfaction. Textron Six Sigma provides a rigorous methodology to reduce variability.

Eliminate Waste

This area of Textron Six Sigma is commonly known as lean. The focus is upon the daily reduction and ultimate elimination of waste in all of our processes---both manufacturing and non-manufacturing. As we do this we create lasting cultural change in the workplace, which fosters an environment that strives for continuous improvement in everything we do.