The four components of a fast-paced organization : going beyond lean sigma tools

"Foreword In my role as vice-president of North American Operations for a global manufacturer, I would frequently be asked if we were a world-class manufacturing organization. I would answer yes, as we had a dynamic market share, state-of-the-art product offerings, and a seasoned management team. I really did not understand exactly what world class meant in detail, but assumed we were. From interfacing with other senior managers outside of my organization, I learned what world-class manufacturing really was and realized we were far from it. We then embarked on a transformation to world-class, Lean, Six Sigma-- many names are used, but the essence is developing a fast-paced organization that goes beyond Lean Sigma tools and emphasizes leadership, organizational structure, process design, and knowledge sharing. Robert Baird was our quality manager at the time we started this transformation. He had recently joined us, and he embraced our evolution to a world-class organization, leading the way. Robert is a Six Sigma Black Belt and has detailed knowledge of both the hard, technical Six Sigma skills and the soft, people and organizational development skills. Robert was instrumental in developing our self-directed, high-performance teams throughout the plant that enabled 100% of our workforce to be engaged and committed to executing our manufacturing strategies. Robert led our Management Steering Team, where he enabled a horizontal flow of knowledge and collaboration between departments, eliminating the departmental silos that tend to develop in an organization, leading to fast-paced communications and problem solving within and between departments"--