(Littelfuse: Chicago) -- A continous improvement team from the Littelfuse Inc. manufacturing facility in the Philippines leveraged its lean Six Sigma process to garner silver winner award honors at the American Society for Quality (ASQ) 2009 International Team Excellence Award competition at the World Conference on Quality and Improvement, in May.

For the Square Nano Project Team of Littelfuse’s Lipa facility, winning global recognition among such corporate heavyweights as Alcoa and The Boeing Co. capped its long-term efforts to resolve and improve a manufacturing process by using an arsenal of continuous improvement tools, including Six Sigma strategies and lean manufacturing techniques. More important, the Littelfuse team’s win focused worldwide attention on the manufacturer for its corporatewide commitment to best-in-class quality and customer service, says Dave Heinzmann, Littelfuse vice president of operations.

Pointing out that the team took silver award honors on its first try, Dennis Craig, director of global operations and lean enterprise, says the team’s success speaks to Littelfuse’s “decision to be best-in-class in manufacturing” when it comes to improving inventory turns and delivery, reducing scrap and customer defects while generating increasingly better lead times. “We’ve had a paradigm shift. We’ve set goals and we’ve brought in the tools, like Six Sigma and lean, to accomplish those goals.”

Craig says the Littelfuse team’s win was representative of what’s taking place within the corporation, which is now benchmarked by customers, suppliers, and businesses committed to continuous improvement. “This team not only fixed the problem, but fixed the root cause,” says Craig, who reported that the competition’s lead judge was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the Littelfuse team.

ASQ, sponsor of the competition, recognized the team for its application of lean Six Sigma methodology to eliminate the chance of loose caps in square nano fuses. The Littelfuse team demonstrated how it leveraged its “factory within a factory” model and applied an arsenal of quality tools to reduce chemical handling, improve cap-retention strength by 166 percent, reduce cycle time by 52 percent, and trim manufacturing costs by 9 percent.

ASQ tapped Littelfuse for the silver award from a field of 27 finalists. Since 1985, more than 800 teams from around the globe have competed in the competition.

Dan Onken, director of Asia operations, called the recognition at ASQ’s 24th quality competition “important, not just for the sake of winning the Silver Award, but because it points to how this team has significantly increased production efficiency and, consequently, our business opportunities.”