Abstract

A case study is presented in which a company in the public transportation services industry took on the issue of how a lean quality improvement staff could help the CEO aspire to new levels of business performance without a typical Six Sigma level budget. There is always a danger that employees may lack both enthusiasm and a sense of ownership about an organization's quality improvement efforts. The company here took on the task of closing this engagement gap by challenging its employees to think differently about quality improvement and to trust the frontline people. This task was also done rapidly and with minimal outside consulting support by using a combination of change acceleration and quality improvement tools. The company claims more than $3.5 million in savings during the first year due to its employee driven teams.