|
January 28, 2008
Adjust Type Size: |  |  |
 |
Textron Financial Division President Scott Raymond, left, presents customer Rick Schadt with an honorary Green Belt for completing Textron Six Sigma Green Belt training. |
Rick Schadt of Briggs & Stratton Power Products Group, LLC., attended his first meeting of Textron Financial’s Customer Advisory Council in 2004, just 10 days after Briggs had become a customer. The topic was Textron Six Sigma (TSS) and how its implementation was not only solving specific problems through data-driven solutions, but creating new opportunities for growth throughout the organization.
The lessons that Schadt came away with set into motion a series of changes that he has been able to make within his company – and for himself. Schadt had known that TSS processes could benefit his company. Now that Briggs was a Textron Financial customer, Schadt wanted to apply this to his company.
Textron Financial was happy to spread its TSS expertise. After all, Textron Financial regularly works with its customers to help them strengthen its business processes. For Textron Financial the idea of customer partnership means using its expertise to help customers.
“We want to have a value-added service that we can bring to our customer,” says Jeff Johnson, a Master Black Belt who coordinates customer partnering for Textron Financial.
Schadt’s project was to eliminate the redundancies among its three credit departments in New York, Wisconsin and Georgia.The lack of communication among Briggs’ three departments was frustrating customers and creating problems through the supply chain.
With the blessing of Briggs’s senior management, Textron Financial’s TSS project team led by Ric Stone, now the vice president of operations for Textron Financial’s field services group, moved forward and got to work.
By employing various Six Sigma tools that defined and measured the problem and then analyzed the data, Briggs’s credit department developed standardized processes and procedures. “Everyone, including the division president, saw the benefits to their company,” Stone says.
“It ultimately resulted in a centralized credit function,” Schadt says. “We identified some of the key bottlenecks and put some things in place to relieve those. It was definitely a successful initiation to how Textron goes about implementing Six Sigma.”
The results were so positive that Schadt wanted to employ TSS processes for other issues. What he really wanted was to become certified as a Green Belt so he could implement changes himself. “It was great to have Ric help us, but I wanted the tools to learn how to do this stuff so I could implement this on my own without always having to depend on someone from Textron to help.”
Schadt was assigned to a Green Belt “wave” in 2007 and he went through the training like any other Textron employee. To become certified as a Green Belt, candidates must undertake and complete a project under the supervision of a Black Belt.
Schadt’s Green Belt project examined Briggs’s inventory transfer process that allows dealers to move inventory to other dealers. Using the TSS principles, Schadt worked with a multi-functional team to standardize instructions, track mistakes and replace paperwork with online forms that salespeople can update daily. “It was really well received and has tremendously improved our operations,” Schadt says of his project. He now has several other Six Sigma projects in his pipeline.
Because Schadt is not a Textron employee, he could not become a Textron Certified Six Sigma Green Belt, he insist that he be tested like the other candidates. “I wanted to make sure I was doing it all the way, and not just paying it lip service.”
Schadt knows that Textron Financial does not pay lip service to its customers. “Textron Financial provides a huge amount of value to customers,” he says. “They gave me this gift and it was a tremendous opportunity for me and for our company.”
Return to Featured Stories
|
Subscribe to Textron's 
