Leveraging Six Sigma to Drive Supply Chain Efficiencies and Savings

In a November 4th, 2003 article by Next Level Purchasing's Charles Dominick titled "Purchaser's Introduction to Six Sigma," stressed that "As a purchaser, you can use the Six Sigma methodology in a variety of ways." This includes everything from "working with a supplier to improve the quality of parts that the supplier provides to you," to minimizing the "number of invoice discrepancies that your organization has to handle," and . improving "almost any purchasing process that has inefficiencies that cost your organization money." In short, and if properly applied, Six Sigma can drive efficiencies across an entire organizations procurement practice. Here we are seven years later and I wonder how much of what Charles described has actually been implemented by purchasing organizations and, in today's increasingly complex and global supply chain environments what would one define as the proper application of the Six Sigma principles. Enter into the picture acclaimed author and creator of the Integrated Enterprise Excellence or IEE corporate performance management system, Forrest Breyfogle III. Forrest will once again join us on the PI Window on Business Show to talk about the purchasing world and how IEE Six Sigma can be effectively applied to drive efficiencies and savings in the emerging global enterprise.