Each year, every Tata Chemicals company across the world enters employees to present their LSS project in front of a panel of judges. Entrants take part from across Tata's operations spanning the four continents of Europe, Africa, North America and Asia.
Tata Chemicals Europe representatives won the coveted prize in 2014 and 2015 – Lostock Packing Team Leader Martin Barber won two years ago and Sodium Bicarb Finished Products & Warehousing Manager Les Ross last year.
Martin is pictured below (centre) with Tata Chemicals Europe Managing Director Martin Ashcroft and Senior Plant Manager Rick Jennings.
Perhaps more important than winning the awards themselves, Martin and Les's projects have delivered substantial and sustained improvements to Tata Chemicals Europe 's processes and costs.
Martin won the award for his efforts in improving the Lostock Packline, while Les's project centered on improving the capacity of the bicarb mill and increasing product output.
This year's competition is about to commence, with plenty of competition to be the next Tata Chemicals Europe nomination and hopefully 'hat trick hero'.
Lean Six Sigma is a methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste, combining lean manufacturing/lean enterprise and Six Sigma to eliminate the eight kinds of waste: transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, over production, over processing, defects, and skills.
For more information about Lean Six Sigma, click here.