Lean Manufacturing Dupont Case Study

Multi-part video case study of lean manufacturing applications at Dupont in their pharmaceuticals line of business. ...

Lean Six Sigma Life Sciences Conference

Developing and Deploying Lean Six Sigma Practices in the Life Sciences Industry conference is scheduled for December 3-5, 2007 at the Hyatt Regency at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia, PA. ...

... "The conference will feature a keynote address on DuPont's Six Sigma Deployment-Experiences and Recommended Practices from a Fortune 100 Company by Steven P. Bailey, Ph.D., Principal Consultant, DuPont Engineering and Research Technology on Tuesday, December 4th at 1 PM. Another keynote on Project Selection - the Achilles Heel of Lean Six Sigma by Ronald D. Snee, Ph.D., Principal and Lean Six Sigma Initiative Leader, Tunnell Consulting, will commence on Monday, December 3rd at 1:30 PM. Both Dr. Bailey and Dr. Snee are respected thought leaders and authors in the area of Lean Six Sigma. " ...

Deploying Lean Six Sigma Practices in the Life Sciences Industry Conference

Dupont Six Sigma Productivity ...

Diane H. Gulyas, Dupont vice president, discusses growth and productivity strategies in the DuPont Performance Materials business at the Credit Suisse Chemical Industry Conference. Lean Six Sigma is accelerating the improvement of productivity. The overall marketplace requires the business to continually improve productivity and lower fixed costs. The Performance Materials division, at nearly $7 billion in revenue, is a growing and profitable segment of DuPont's overall business portfolio. ...

... "Productivity improvements have accelerated with the application of Six Sigma and lean manufacturing tools. Continual productivity improvement is integral to achieving the platform's strategy for consistent, profitable growth and in the first half of 2006 we reduced fixed cost as a percentage of sales by over 200 basis points. " ...

Via Dupont: DuPont Performance Materials Group Vice President Diane Gulyas Briefs Analysts

Dupont Six Sigma Champion Promoted ...

Six Sigma champion at Dupont is promoted to leader of business line. ...

... "John, who most recently served as global business director for DuPont Fluorochemicals, joined DuPont in 1976 as an accountant and business analyst. Since then he has held a variety of manufacturing and business management positions in the company’s fibers and films businesses. As director of DuPont Power, he had overall responsibility for developing a corporate energy strategy. He also served as Six Sigma Champion for DuPont Global Sourcing and Logistics. " ...

Dupont Six Sigma Champion Promoted: Via DuPont: DuPont Names John McCool VPGM - Refinish Systems Business ...

Dupont Six Sigma Analysis: Legal Research ...

LRN extends its strategic relationship with DuPont to enable the DuPont commitment to business integrity and compliance. ...

Dupont Six Sigma Analysis: Legal Research: Via Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal: The DuPont Commitment To Conducting Business With Integrity ...

... "DuPont conducted a rigorous Six Sigma analysis of the LRN process for developing legal research, assessing the cost of producing legal research and the effectiveness with which it is used and found that it not only delivered high caliber legal research, but did so with significant savings in research-related fees. " ...

Six Sigma Productivity Advancement: Dupont Actions Drive Value

Dupont leverages their Six Sigma heritage and SAP ERP information technology foundation to drive to new levels of value through the advancement of productivity. ...

Six Sigma Productivity Advancement: Dupont Actions Drive Value: Via DuPont: DuPont Announces Actions To Increase Shareholder Value ...

... "Productivity Advancement: DuPont will accelerate work already underway to standardize and simplify its operating processes and will reduce its functional support costs to externally-benchmarked top-quartile standards. This work will make full utilization of the investment in new state-of-the-art information technology for business and financial systems (SAP) implemented over the past five years. Building on its well-established Six Sigma base, the focus will include lean global supply chain practices to strengthen service, reduce costs and reduce inventory. Chief Operating Officer Richard Goodmanson will manage the process, with quarterly external progress reports. " ...

Board Exec with Business SixSigma IT Experience ...

Board Exec with Business SixSigma IT Experience: Via Analog Devices: Analog Devices Announces New Board Member

... "Mr. Hodgson joined DuPont in 1966 and has held a number of leadership positions within the company, serving as a general manager since 1979, group executive since 1998 and an executive officer since 2002. Mr. Hodgson has broad-based, global business experience in sales, marketing and general management. In addition, Mr. Hodgson brings a close familiarity with the semiconductor industry which stems from his role in leading DuPont's successful Electronic Materials business unit for 10 years during which time the unit became a leading supplier in the global electronic materials segment of the electronics industry. As a member of DuPont's Office of the Chief Executive, his experience includes leading DuPont's five major business divisions and global functional leadership for marketing and sales, sourcing, Six Sigma and information technology. " ...

Innovation, performance, and excellence are the cultural pillars on which Analog Devices has built one of the longest standing, highest growth companies within the technology sector. Acknowledged industry-wide as the world leader in data conversion and signal conditioning technology, Analog Devices serves over 60,000 customers, representing virtually all types of electronic equipment. Celebrating 40 years as a leading global manufacturer of high-performance integrated circuits used in analog and digital signal processing applications, Analog Devices is headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts, with design and manufacturing facilities throughout the world.

Six Sigma Supplier Excellence ...

DuPont Photomasks Receives Freescale Semiconductor's 'Supplier Excellence' Award ...

... "DuPont Photomasks, Inc. (NASDAQ: DPMI) announced that it has received a Supplier Excellence Award from Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors. The Freescale Supplier Excellence Award recognizes DuPont Photomasks' outstanding performance in supplying photomasks at the 90nm design node under an extremely aggressive delivery schedule at Freescale's MOS13 wafer fab in Austin, Texas. The expedited delivery of photomasks enabled MOS13 to achieve record cycle time throughout the fab. " ...

DuPont Photomasks, Inc. is a leading global provider of microimaging solutions. The Company develops and produces advanced photomasks, a key enabling technology used in the manufacture of semiconductor and other microelectronic devices. Headquartered in Round Rock, Texas, DuPont Photomasks operates a global network of manufacturing facilities serving semiconductor makers and other electronics producers around the world. DuPont Photomasks posted worldwide revenues of $354 million in fiscal 2004.

DFSS Conference Coming This June ...

DFSS Conference This June: WCBF Announces Speakers for June Design for Six Sigma Conference

DFSS Design for Six Sigma Conference is coming up in June ...

From PR Newswire (press release) ... Today WCBF announced the speakers for the ninth event in their Six Sigma series, which have seen unrivalled success ...

... Today WCBF announced the speakers for the ninth event in their Six Sigma series, which have seen unrivalled success to date. Based on the unique cross-industry agenda, WCBF's Design for Six Sigma Conference is expected to be the largest DFSS event to-date, addressing the real needs of DFSS practitioners struggling with the challenges of deploying and advancing DFSS. WCBF's DFSS conference gathers together the DFSS deployment leaders and expert practitioners in both product AND process development including BANK OF AMERICA, DUPONT, RAYTHEON, GENERAL ELECTRIC, SEAGATE, QUEST DIAGNOSTICS, CIGNA CORPORATION and many more! The conference will be held on Thursday 9th and Friday 10th June 2005 at The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas with six separately bookable pre-conference workshops on Wednesday June 8th. ...

WCBF's Design for Six Sigma conference is sponsored by: BMG, i-solutions, Moresteam, Oriel, PowerSteering Software, Instantis, Statistical Design Institute, Stat-A-Matrix, Cognition Corporation, Lean Innovation Institute.

Six Sigma in Workplace Safety ...

Six Sigma Workplace Safety: WorkWell President & CEO George Carpenter to Address Workplace ...

From Business Wire (press release), CA ... Great companies like GE, Alcoa, and Dupont see injury as a preventable quality problem, and apply many of the same Six Sigma quality techniques and worksite ...

... George Carpenter, president and CEO of WorkWell Systems, will present "Workplace Trends in the Fortune 500: Employers Confront the 'Hidden Factory,'" highlighting the looming "capacity crisis" in the American workforce. Aging and retiring workers will create an unprecedented labor shortage by 2010 in skilled occupations, and the declining physical capacity of workers due to obesity and age-related chronic impairments will compound this shortage ...

... at the "Annual Pharmacoeconomic Conference: Economics and Outcomes of Chronic Conditions," Jan. 26 in Tucson, Ariz., sponsored by the Center for Health Outcomes and PharmacoEconomic Research and the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy. ...

WorkWell Systems is a rapidly growing physical medicine and workers' compensation solutions company, defining workers' compensation process improvement in the Fortune 500. Using Six Sigma methodologies pioneered by the world's best-run companies, WorkWell programs dramatically reduce employee injuries and make clients more competitive. Winner of the 2004 Innovation in Healthcare Award, the company has developed proprietary Web-based clinical tools, process improvement methodologies, and the nation's largest network of independent physical medicine providers. WorkWell provides employers with an integrated approach to pre-work physical screening, workers' comp program management and return-to-work plans. Clients include Fortune 500 organizations across a variety of industries including transportation, manufacturing and healthcare. The company is based in Aliso Viejo, with regional offices located in Chicago and Duluth, Minn.

Supply Chain Management: Coty International Selects Manugistics to Optimize Freight ...

From Business Wire (press release), CA ... MANU), a leading global provider of demand and supply chain management solutions ... The deployment provides a global freight optimization program that includes ...

... Manugistics Group (NASDAQ:MANU), a leading global provider of demand and supply chain management solutions, today announced that it has been awarded a software licensing contract with Coty Inc., one of the world's largest marketers, manufacturers and distributors of fragrances, cosmetics, personal care and beauty care products. The contract, awarded in May, is an expansion of Manugistics' longstanding relationship with Coty. Manugistics is currently deploying an end-to-end transportation management system to optimize inbound, outbound and inter-facility freight logistics among Coty's North American and European facilities. The deployment provides a global freight optimization program that includes track and trace, load order consolidation, automated freight pay and invoice reconciliation, dynamic pooling and exchange integration. ...

Manugistics is a leading global provider of demand and supply chain management solutions. Today, more than 1,200 clients trust Manugistics to help them drive profitable growth, unlock the value of their existing IT investments, and ensure the security and integrity of their global supply chains. Its clients include industry leaders such as AT&T, BMW, Boeing, Brown & Williamson, Cingular, Circuit City, Coca-Cola Bottling, Continental Airlines, Diageo, DuPont, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, McCormick, Nestle, Nissan, RadioShack, Sanmina-SCI and Unilever.

Coty Inc., which celebrates its centennial this year, is a modern company that has risen to become one of the world's largest and most successful beauty companies with sales of $1.7 billion in 2003. With operations in more than 25 countries, Coty Inc. boasts a global brand portfolio of unrivaled breadth and scope, spanning the three core categories of fragrance, color cosmetics and skincare in the prestige, mass and "masstige" distribution sectors.

Manufacturing Execution System MES: BASF Selects AspenTech's Integrated Engineering Solution

From Business Wire (press release), CA ... company's recent decision to select AspenTech's information management solution as the foundation of a new Manufacturing Execution System (MES) strategy for ...

... Aspen Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: AZPN) today announced that BASF, one of the world's leading chemical companies, has signed a multi-year license agreement to deploy AspenTech's integrated engineering solution, which is based on the Aspen Zyqad collaborative engineering environment. BASF will use the software solution in combination with other Aspen Engineering Suite(TM) solutions to enable more efficient work processes for major plant engineering projects. ...

Aspen Technology, Inc. provides industry-leading software and implementation services that enable process companies to increase efficiency and profitability. AspenTech's engineering product line is used to design and improve plants and processes, maximizing returns throughout an asset's operating life. Its manufacturing/supply chain product line allows companies to increase margins in their plants and supply chains, by managing customer demand, optimizing production, and streamlining the delivery of finished products. These two offerings are combined to create solutions for enterprise operations management (EOM), integrated enterprise-wide systems that provide process manufacturers with the capability to dramatically improve their operating performance. Over 1,500 leading companies already rely on AspenTech's software, including Aventis, Bayer, BASF, BP, ChevronTexaco, Dow Chemical, DuPont, ExxonMobil, Fluor, GlaxoSmithKline, Shell, and Total.

Software to Reduce Variability: Pavilion Technologies Awarded DOE Grant to Advance the Study of ...

From Business Wire (press release), CA ... Pavilion has applied similar approaches to industrial processes to reduce the variability, drive down variable costs, increase production and enhance product ...

... Pavilion Technologies, a world leader in advanced process control (APC) and environmental compliance solutions, announced that it has been awarded a grant through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. As part of the grant, Pavilion will further advance its research of modeling complex systems using both first-principles equations and empirical information. In particular, Pavilion will enhance algorithms that enable self-validation and diagnostics of these combined models. These developments will result in faster deployment of complex modeling solutions and more robust control of both high-speed accelerator and manufacturing processes. ...

Pavilion Technologies is the leading developer of advanced process control (APC) and environmental compliance solutions. Pavilion's ValueFirst(TM) customer relationship methodology aligns the company's people, products and processes to deliver rapid and recurring value for their customers. More than 350 leading companies worldwide, including ATOFINA, BP, Eastman Chemicals, Fonterra, Nestle and Weyerhauser depend on Pavilion's solutions to increase yield, enhance product quality, reduce variable costs and achieve environmental compliance each day. Pavilion Technologies is a privately held company based in Austin, TX, with offices serving every region of the world. Pavilion Technologies was founded in 1991, leveraging intellectual capital from Dupont, Eastman Chemical, and the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) to apply neural network modeling to industrial applications. Since that time, Pavilion has advanced its pure decision generation research while delivering valuable solutions to its customers.

Pavilion’s flagship multivariable predictive control solution – Process Perfecter® – is the only solution in the market capable of synthesizing all available information – process knowledge, first-principle equations, or empirical models – into a comprehensive model of the production process. In addition to the flexibility of the solution, Process Perfecter® is the most computationally efficient controller in the market, to continuously improve the production process based on a customers’ unique business objectives.

EPM: Intentia Enterprise Performance Management Software...

From Intentia... Enterprise performance management through the balanced scorecard or other measurement means is necessary for the success of today's organization...

... Opportunity Analysis (Map, Target, Plan) is performed using Intentia's specialized IT application, Performance Manager. Performance Manager is coordinated with the supply chain operations reference model (SCOR model). The SCOR model enables benchmarking of key performance indicators between different companies. Performance Manager also contains a specialized variant of the DuPont model, which focuses on process-driven profitability (PDP), to support systematic management of the key business processes’ profitability. ...

The natural way to improve the company's profitability and key value metrics is by introducing best practices into the processes. The Business Process Performance Manager points out the best practices available for the key business processes within the value chain.

Intentia is one of the world's leading suppliers of collaboration solutions, with approximately 3,000 employees who serve more than 3,400 customers in the manufacturing, maintenance and distribution industries via a global network spanning some 40 countries. Intentia is a public company traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange (XSSE) under the symbol INT B. Intentia International AB is the parent company of the Intentia Group, which consists of six business groups (BGs): Northwestern Europe, Northern Europe, Central Europe, Southern Europe, Americas and Asia Pacific. The BGs' role is to establish partner acquisitions and support the partner network with training, technology transfer and implementation. Products and methods are developed centrally by Intentia Research & Development. Intentia currently employs nearly 3,400 people in some 40 countries around the world and has a customer base of 3,500 manufacturing and distribution companies worldwide that use the Movex collaborative enterprise application.

Six Sigma Program: Principled Profit - Where's the Paradox ?

From Business Wire (press release), CA ... Zero defect programs like TQM and Six Sigma are used to improve business processes but no one is using this methodology to improve ethical behavior. ...

Synchrogenix Information Strategies, Inc, founded in 1986, is a strategic business consulting and communications company delivering training, new media, marketing communications, software documentation and scientific communications to many Fortune 500 companies. Clients include AstaZeneca, DuPont, Endo, Johnson and Johnson, GE and Centocor.

Six Sigma Asset Utilization: DuPont Announces Kevlar Expansion

From Jobwerx, United States ... In addition to the expansions, DuPont continues to increase capacity by optimizing the productivity of existing assets through the use of Six Sigma processes. ...

Six Sigma Methodology: DuPont Adds New Distributors for Specialty Colorants and ...

From Azom.com ... Combining DuPont knowledge and experience with Six Sigma methodology provides customers with added product value and significant cost savings through yield and ...

Six Sigma Belts: Friends of IP

From Inside Paint, OH ... Ed Donnelly, group vice president – DuPont Coatings and Color Technologies, recently recognized 90 newly certified Six Sigma Green Belts at the annual United ...

Six Sigma Process: DuPont Announces Kevlar(R) Expansion

From PR Newswire (press release) ... In addition to the expansions, DuPont continues to increase capacity by optimizing the productivity of existing assets through the use of Six Sigma processes. ...

The American Productivity & Quality Center has selected DuPont Global Services as a best practice partner for its deployment of Six Sigma in transactional and service areas. Other companies chosen for a benchmarking study on "Deploying Six Sigma to Bolster Business Processes and the Bottom Line" are American Express, Raytheon, Commonwealth Health, and Iomega.

Six Sigma Voice of Customer: DuPont Auction Helps BTI Win Global Biz

From Business Travel News - May 10, 2004 ... The first step, Bell said, was to line up senior leadership support and to follow its Six Sigma methodology, which includes securing the voice customer by ...

Six Sigma Presentation: EasyLink's Vice President of Quality Bill Robinson to Address...

From Business Wire (press release) ... His address, entitled "Applying Six Sigma in a Services Business to Drive Breakthrough Improvement in Reliability, Quality and Customer Satisfaction" will ...

In 2002, EasyLink launched Six-Sigma Quality throughout the organization, joining corporations such as GE, Honeywell, DuPont and Motorola in adopting this customer-focused way of doing business.

The goal of Six-Sigma is to increase customer satisfaction and profitability by eliminating variability, defects and waste that undermine customer loyalty. Six-Sigma is a rigorous and disciplined methodology that uses data and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company's operational performance by identifying and eliminating "defects" in manufacturing and service-related processes. Commonly defined as 3.4 defects per million opportunities, Six -Sigma measures customers' "critical to quality" requirements and EasyLink's performance against specific metrics related to those requirements. To our customers, Six-Sigma is pretty straightforward - deliver what they want the first time, on time. This covers everything from the availability of our network services and the time it takes us to deliver a customer transaction, to the accuracy of the bill we send them for doing so.

EasyLink met its 2003 goal of a 63% improvement over our 1st quarter 2002 performance against these metrics. Our 2004 goal is on track to achieve 50% improvement over 2003 performance. Bill Robinson, EasyLink Vice President of Quality stated: "Six-Sigma is not something that happens overnight; it is a day-to-day philosophy that gets built into the way we do business."

Six Sigma Communications: Don Linsenmann, Vice President, DuPont, Joins TMX Advisory Board

Six Sigma Approach Reinventing Marketing Communications

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa., March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- TMX, a leading digital communications agency, announced today that Don Linsenmann has joined its Advisory Board. Linsenmann, vice president and corporate champion of Six Sigma, DuPont's business improvement process, is responsible for the program's global deployment. At TMX, he will assume the role of senior advisor and business development counselor.

"Not only am I impressed by TMX's creative and strategic abilities, but I think their proprietary tools, Communicator(TM) and Campaign Intelligence(TM), offer incredible value to clients. They are among the first solutions of their kind to hold marketing and advertising campaigns accountable," said Linsenmann.

Having overseen Six Sigma since its inception in 1999, Linsenmann led its development from a cost reduction program to a business improvement process. To date, DuPont has validated over $2 billion in Six Sigma benefits from this initiative. In addition to leading the Six Sigma effort at DuPont, Linsenmann also leads the company's Corporate Strategic Accounts, establishing strategic relationships with significant global companies. Previously, Linsenmann led DuPont's Industrial Nylon business to capacity in Indonesia, Turkey, and Argentina by cultivating many creative partnering agreements with regional companies. He was then appointed the Managing Director of European Lycra®.

"Don was one of the first Six Sigma leaders to embrace the concept that the Six Sigma methodology applies to marketing and advertising as well as traditional manufacturing processes," said Eric Smith, Chief Strategic Officer. "His expertise and advice will be invaluable as we continue to grow and refine our Campaign Intelligence (CI) and other return on investment analytics."

TMX works closely with its blue-chip clients to create and deliver new forms of enhanced media content in dramatic new ways across multiple channels. The company has developed numerous proprietary tools such as TMX Communicator, a solution that enables digital enhancement of web content, e-mail and other forms of electronic messaging. Used to deliver marketing materials to customers and prospects on a one-to-one basis, Communicator allows sales professionals to prioritize their efforts, refine strategy and apply new tactics as necessary...

Six Sigma Healthcare: Virtua Health Harnessing the Power of Six Sigma to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Costs in Health Care

Sharing Virtua's Success with the Nation: Susan McGann, RN, Six Sigma Master Black Belt at Virtua Health, featured speaker at National Six Sigma in Health Care Conference

MARLTON, N.J., March 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Six Sigma: if you haven't heard about it yet, chances are you soon will. Six Sigma, a strategic problem- solving approach to improve business operations, is making its mark in the health sector as a means to improve quality of care while reducing costs. Developed by the Motorola Company in 1987, this highly successful approach to improving processes has since been widely adopted and praised throughout corporations including General Electric, DuPont, Johnson and Johnson and Dow Chemical.
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Virtua Health, a New Jersey based non-profit healthcare provider, has seen results since implementing General Electric's Six Sigma Master Black Belt development program in July 2000 -- the industry's first designed specifically for healthcare professionals. (In Six Sigma terminology full-time leaders and teachers of the Six Sigma process are referred to as master black belts.) A single Six Sigma project at Virtua saved the organization more than $1 million a year by increasing insurance reimbursement for surgically implanted devices.

Recently, Virtua Six Sigma Master Black Belt Susan McGann, RN, joined other healthcare leaders from across the country to share Virtua's success at the largest Six Sigma conference to date. The Second Annual National Six Sigma Conference "Successfully Implementing Six Sigma in Healthcare -- Harnessing the Power of Six Sigma to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Costs" was recently held in New Orleans, LA. At the conference, McGann shared her knowledge of and experience with the use of Six Sigma as an approach to improving patient safety in healthcare organizations; hiring, training and compensation for green and black belts; and experiences in capturing data and measuring gains.

McGann and fellow Virtua Master Black Belt Mark VanKooy, MD, have led a comprehensive effort to drive the methodologies of Six Sigma, CAP (Change Acceleration Process) and Work Out across Virtua Health. Together they oversee six full-time project leaders known as Black Belts, and 29 managers and supervisors trained as project leaders called Green Belts. The Six Sigma leaders of all levels work to implement programs that support Virtua's STAR initiative. The focus is an outstanding patient experience while raising the organization's process and outcome metrics from average to excellent. Virtua's goal is to train more than 150 Green Belt managers and supervisors in all healthcare areas.

"With mentoring from GE's Performance Solutions team and leadership from Virtua's master black belts, Six Sigma projects have been strategically aligned with Virtua's objectives, improving areas that range from revenue enhancement to heparin usage," says McGann. "Virtua's Six Sigma and change management initiatives have delivered tangible, measurable results having a positive impact on patient care, employee morale and the organization's bottom line. As a result of the improvement initiatives over the last few years, Virtua Health reports total annualized savings of more than $5 million to date."

Six Sigma supports Virtua's own unique plan for quality -- the STAR initiative. Developed by Virtua President and CEO Richard P. Miller to create an outstanding patient experience, STAR is a program that charges all employees with applying the principles of excellent service, highest quality and safety, caring culture, best people and resource stewardship to the day-to-day operations of the organization. Six Sigma is a tool to get STAR results. It also reflects the commitment Miller and Virtua's Board of Trustees have to getting results that matter to patients.

Virtua is currently starting the seventh wave of Six Sigma projects. Projects have been initiated in areas ranging from the administration of chemotherapy medication to improved billing for home care services.

One project that demonstrates the application and power of Six Sigma in health care is the Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) Length Of Stay project. The challenge Virtua faced was that the length of stay for Medicare CHF patients was 6.5 days while the Medicare benchmark was 4.2 days. The team found a great deal of variation in the later part of the hospital stay and around the discharge process. Important lab and testing results were not available to the physicians in a timely manner. There was also a great deal of variation in patient and family expectations about the length of stay.

The team created standard operating procedures for the nursing team and a patient and family information brochure describing the usual course of care for CHF patients. The team modified the flow of test results to assure timely availability to the physicians for these patients. The efforts resulted in a length of stay reduction to four days and savings of $116,000 per year in staff and room costs. Staff productivity gains were leveraged to reduce the need for agency nursing.

The project was conducted at one of Virtua's four hospitals but the approach has been fully rolled out at the other three facilities standardizing the process across the health system.

For more information on Virtua's Six Sigma program or STAR Initiative, contact 1-888-Virtua-3 (1-888-847-8823).

Virtua Health, the largest health care provider in South Jersey, is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing the highest quality health care to the communities it serves. Virtua Health, with more than 7,500 employees and 1,700 physicians, is comprised of four hospitals including Virtua Memorial Hospital Burlington County, Mt. Holly, and Virtua West Jersey Hospitals in Berlin, Marlton and Voorhees. More than 7,000 babies are born annually at Virtua's hospitals in Mt. Holly and Voorhees where comprehensive neonatal intensive care for premature newborns is provided. A wide range of world-class pediatric specialty care is offered through the Virtua/duPont Children's Health Program, an affiliation with the A.I. duPont Hospital for Children. The Fox Chase Virtua Health Cancer Program provides comprehensive cancer treatment, the latest technology, and access to national and regional cancer treatment and prevention studies. With five strategically located emergency centers, Virtua handles more emergencies -- and more pediatric emergencies -- than any other health system in South Jersey. Virtua also serves the community with comprehensive primary care and emergency services at its outpatient center in Camden; two long-term comprehensive care centers in Berlin and Mt. Holly; two outpatient surgery centers in Mt. Holly and Voorhees; a home-health care agency and the William G. Rohrer Center for HealthFitness in Voorhees. For information about Virtua's services or physicians, call 1-888-Virtua-3 or visit us on the web at www.virtua.org.