Textron.com Home > About Textron > Our Company > Vision & Strategy > Textron Six Sigma 

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: In the three years since its inception, we have trained 600 Black Belts and more than 2,000 Green Belts to lead Six Sigma projects throughout our businesses. And we implemented rigorous Design for Six Sigma, and New Product and Service Introduction standards under which new products and services are being brought to market.

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 better than anyone else. It's a proven way to develop top quality products, services and processes right the first time, faster, and at a much lower cost. 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 is about reducing the variation around an average. For example, if it takes 50 minutes on average to manufacture a particular product component, it could take as little as 30 minutes or as long as 70 minutes. Shrinking the variability would mean that this same component could be manufactured within 40 to 60 minutes - a smaller window of variability.

Our customers feel the extremes in delivery, cost and quality, not the average. 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

The Textron Six Sigma focus on waste elimination, also called Textron Six Sigma Lean, is through an important mapping tool called Value Stream mapping. By using Value Stream mapping Textron Six Sigma teams identify multiple opportunities (Textron Six Sigma Lean Kaizen events or projects) to reduce waste. The next step is to improve upon the most significant waste-reduction opportunities while creating a future state value stream map to guide future waste elimination, variation reduction or design opportunities on the value stream.