In the Fall 2003 issue of In Our Hands, Six Sigma expert George Eckes talked about an important transformation companies need to make on their road to making Six Sigma a part of their culture. "In the early years, it's very tempting to try to justify the investment in Six Sigma by working solely on efficiency projects that take out costs. But for Six Sigma to last, you have to transition to effectiveness projects which impact the customer," he said. At ITT Industries, that transition is clearly taking place, as evidenced by two recent Value-Based Six Sigma projects, which are very similar in the issues being addressed - speeding international shipments - and in the fact that their solutions focus more on customer satisfaction than costs: Night Vision: Expediting Export Licenses In the last five years, Night Vision has seen international sales grow by leaps and bounds - from 20 percent of the business in 1997 to 50 percent of the business today. As exports increased, additional time-consuming export compliance administrative issues arose and these issues, at times, affected on-time delivery. At one point, more than half of all shipments on hold were being delayed by export paperwork issues. The Export Administration department recognized the need to develop a system that leveraged existing internal databases. The main culprit was the cumbersome licensing application process, required by the U.S. State Department as a way to document all Significant Military Equipment being sold to foreign governments. To expedite the export process, a VBSS team, requested by Export Administration and led by black belt Lisa Highberger, mapped out the licensing process and discovered that licensing information was being keyboarded from paper documents to paper documents. The solution was to create an electronic connection between an existing Order Management (OMPI) system and a newly designed Export Licensing Input & Process Tracking (ELIPT) system. The OMPI data automatically populates the ELIPT system, eliminating the need for manual typing and the accompanying errors. In addition, ELIPT utilizes a "Poke Yoke" (fail safe) system that prevents users from moving forward until all requirements have been met, thus reducing time-consuming omissions, and features color-coded fields that let users quickly see what actions still need to be addressed. Licenses are now submitted in less than four days, rather than seven. When there are unexpected problems, the ELIPT system enables Night Vision to get back on track quickly - with an average of one-day delays, rather than nine-day delays. Most importantly, customers are getting their products faster. Bell & Gossett: Speeding International Shipments Bell & Gossett customers outside the U.S. are getting their pumps faster than they were just one year ago. Instead of four days between order release and shipment, international products are out the door in just two days. "Customers are noticing - we're getting positive feedback, especially from customers who placed expedited orders and need their pumps in a hurry," says Vince Walsh, the black belt who led a VBSS team through the "export distribution project." The team compressed the shipping time by speeding the paperwork process. Each international shipment requires a variety of export documentation, including a bill of lading, delivery instructions and the shipper's export declaration. Previously, Bell & Gossett was keying in the data on Word and Excel spreadsheets. To eliminate this step, the team merged the warehouse management, global documentation and order entry systems, so that much of the export information is automatically populated in the export documents. In addition, the team found other ways to shave hours or days off the shipping process. Shipping requirements from the customer - including the desired port for delivery - were captured earlier in the order entry process, eliminating last-minute delays caused by waiting for final forwarding instructions. In addition to reducing the average distribution time by 53 percent, the team achieved a 70 percent reduction in throughput variation times, meaning customers now have a much better idea of exactly when they will see their shipment.			Top: The Night Vision VBSS team includes (l. to r.) Charles Dudley, Lisa Highberger, Kili Mesner, Dave Burkle, Robin Wright, Bo Lucas and Phil Motley. Bottom: The Bell & Gossett VBSS team includes (l. to r.) Roberta Mariano, Dennis Gribbens, Vince Walsh, Mike Venchus and Bhavana Trivedi.