Six Sigma Project Case Study Overview, from the General Electric "At the Customer, For the Customer" Six Sigma Program, led by Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and President of the International Standard for Lean Six Sigma (ISLSS) and Owner of the Lean Six Sigma Group

1. Six Sigma in Action
Ticket Accuracy
Customer Profile – 41,000 employee pharmaceutical research company
Business Problem & Impact Process Capability –fo r C 3
P C ha rt Before
The customer estimated error rate of 40% in the accuracy of 0.7
tickets logged into the client’s in-house help desk was causing
0.6 3.0S L
80 person-hours of time per month to correct.
0.5
Measure & Analyze
Proportion
0.4
Data Collection: Accuracy of logged calls was measured -
defects
0.3 P = 0.3
existing sigma (long term) was found to be 0.5 (31% defects)
Root Causes: Lack of operational definitions of the calls, 0.2
differences in agent interpretation, too many options for 0.1
classifying tickets and the accuracy of supporting databases
0.0 -3.0S
were identified as root causes.
0 10 20
Improve & Control S am p le Num b e r
Existing databases that feed the ticket system were corrected and maintenance controls were established.
The number of fields that client help desk staff had to select from was reduced, and operation definitions
were clarified and published. Sigma was increased to 2.8 and defects were reduced by 69%.
Results/Benefits
As a result of the project, the customer saved over US$26K in productivity since less time was needed to
correct ticket errors within their process.
A savings of US$26K annual to the customer!