Case Studies

Organizations around the world use quality to improve their processes and results. These case studies demonstrate how companies apply quality tools outside of the United States.

It’s a Matter of Time: Ship Servicers Use Quick Kaizen to Shorten Long Turnaround
(PDF, 236 KB)
A team at the Yokosuka Calibration Laboratory, U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center, used a series of kaizen events to shorten service lead time by 68 percent. The team qualified as a finalist in ASQ’s 2008 International Team Excellence Award process.
November 2009.

Piecing Things Together: Better Materials Organization Improves Ship Repair Service (PDF, 276 KB)
Employees at the Sasebo production shop of the U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center used a lean 5S approach to establish a new way of managing their materials inventory. The team reduced time spent looking for parts by 80 percent and qualified as finalists in ASQ’s 2008 International Team Excellence Award process.
November 2009.

Getting Green With Lean (PDF, 483 KB)
The JDSU legal department’s global trade team used lean tools to eliminate waste from its import management processes. By creating a paperless process, the team handled a 500-percent increase in work and eliminated at least 70,000 paper copies per year.
September 2009.

Optimizing Purchasing Processes Saves $1 Million (PDF, 258 KB)
Can a change in purchasing processes for the most basic manufacturing components, like bolts, actually lead to $1 million in savings? For an MWM INTERNATIONAL Motores Six Sigma improvement team, the answer is a resounding yes.
July 2009.

Singapore Housing and Development Board Teams Use Quality Tools to Provide Award-Winning Customer Service
June 2009.
Three improvement teams from the Singapore Housing and Development Board (HDB) qualified as finalists in ASQ’s 2008 International Team Excellence Award process. Read about their projects.

• M.A.G.I.C. Huddles: Handbook Motivates Staff and Improves Customer Service (PDF, 184 KB)
  An improvement team used quality tools to develop a handbook that reduced service center supervisors’ preparation time for one daily activity by 75 percent, a savings of 45 worker-months per year.
• Quality Tools Help Singapore Housing and Development Board Develop Award-Winning New Product (PDF, 419 KB)
  Quality tools helped an improvement team develop a new product to measure the gradient of ramps in HDB housing communities. The tool reduced the amount of time it took to assess a ramp’s gradient by 89.5 percent.
• Singapore Housing and Development Board MoJet Pack: Using Quality Tools for Product Development (PDF, 266 KB)
  An HDB improvement team used quality tools to develop a new product, the MoJet Pack, to test water tightness and prevent seepage in homes. In just one year, use of the MoJet Pack brought about a 90-percent decrease in the number of seepage defect cases per housing contract.

Improved Response Time Increases Revenue for Global Lender (PDF, 154 KB)
A global lender was losing 40% of its applications for auto loans in Latin America, mainly due to slow response times. Through the use of basic lean and Six Sigma tools, response times improved by as much as 98%, and contract volume increased by up to 120%.
June 2008.