Cummins is celebrating 10 years of Six Sigma and $3 billion in annualized savings by recognizing the best work from among the nearly 4,000 projects completed worldwide in 2009.

The top health and safety, and customer-focused Six Sigma projects will be displayed May 11 in an expo on the ground floor of the company’s engine plant in Columbus, Indiana. The best projects from across Cummins—winners of the chairman’s Six Sigma Quality Award—will be on display also on May 11 in a virtual expo. Some of those projects can be accessed on the Cummins web site.

These projects demonstrate that as Cummins enters its second decade of Six Sigma, the tools remain a vital part of how the company does business. In fact, Six Sigma is more important than ever as it requires employees in upper management to be Green Belt-certified in order to make an advance or lateral career move.

Consider the effect of the projects being recognized at the physical expo:

• The health and safety projects, which are being recognized with the President’s Safety Best Practice Award, are responsible for helping Cummins reduce injuries and make ergonomic improvements to equipment and processes.

• Customer-focused Six Sigma projects have helped Cummins build stronger relationships with customers while using the tools to reduce some of their costs. The winning projects from 2009 saved customers $8.6 million.

The projects in both expos show that Cummins uses the tools to improve the quality of products, lower costs, become more efficient, and develop new technologies. Six Sigma has helped Cummins forge deeper relationships with its customers and suppliers as it works with them to deal with common issues.

Nearly 18,000 Green Belt and Black Belt projects have been completed since Cummins first got involved with Six Sigma in September 1999. Those projects have resulted in $3 billion in annualized savings to Cummins and an addition $750 million in savings to customers.

The winners of the Chairman’s Award are responsible for savings of $67 million to Cummins and $8.6 million to customers in 2009. More important, every project on display exemplifies the company’s goal—to continually improve its processes so that customers can depend on it.

To visit the projects on display at the physical expo, go the Columbus Engine Plant, Gate 96, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 11.

To view projects at the virtual expo go to www.cummins.com and click on the Six Sigma icon.