Event: 10th ASQ Lean and Six Sigma Conference

(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- As organizations continue to look for ways to eliminate waste and improve the bottom line to survive the current economy, lean and Six Sigma continue to be an important part of their business plan.

Professionals will have an opportunity to enhance their skills at the American Society for Quality’s (ASQ) 10th annual Lean and Six Sigma Conference.

The power of lean and Six Sigma is evident by the billions of dollars organizations have trimmed by implementing these tools.

The 2010 Lean and Six Sigma Conference will be held March 8–9, in Phoenix, at the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Hotel. This year’s theme is “Delivering Global Value and Excellence Through Lean and Six Sigma.”

Professionals will take part in the conference’s largest program ever by attending a variety of more than 50 sessions and workshops on various focus areas. Focus areas include: Increased Global Value; Delivering Excellence; Technical/Statistical Tools; Cost, Waste, Defect Reduction; Responding to a Global Economy; and 21st Century Issues Through Social Responsibility.

The full program and session descriptions can be found at www.asq.org/conferences/six-sigma/index.html [1].

Keynote speakers

Rob Bryant

Rob Bryant is a renowned motivational speaker and lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt who draws from his personal triumph of overcoming paralysis after a 55-foot fall in 1982. Bryant subsequently achieved two world records: longest walk by a paraplegic (24 miles), and rowing 3,280 miles on a row machine (Guinness Book of World Records, 1992–2000).

Bryant’s fall, due to a design change in a pulley that removed a 49-cent cotter pin, is one of the reasons he refocused his life’s work on quality and safety and wrote the book Walking Through Adversity: 7 Steps to Overcoming Life's Challenges (Health Communications, 2001). He integrates his motivational messages into lean and Six Sigma practices.

Bryant is the Global Infrastructure Services vice president of Process Improvement/Six Sigma and the Master Black Belt for Computer Sciences Corp (CSC). He supervises more than 200 Six Sigma projects annually, which has resulted in more than $200 million in reduced costs and increased revenue for CSC in the last seven years.

Forrest W. Breyfogle III

In a professional career spanning more than 25 years, Forrest Breyfogle has established himself as a leading edge thinker, a prolific author, an innovative consultant, a world-class educator, and a successful business executive. His work is documented in 11 books and more than 90 articles on the topic of quality improvement, which includes his most recent series of books titled Integrated Enterprise Excellence (Bridgeway Books, 2008), in addition to regular columns for Quality Digest Daily. He was awarded the Crosby Medal for Implementing Six Sigma. He is currently located in Austin, Texas, where he founded Smarter Solutions Inc.

Roger W. Hoerl

Roger W. Hoerl leads the Applied Statistics Lab at GE Global Research. He is a certified Master Black Belt, has been named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and ASQ, and has been elected to the International Statistical Institute and the International Academy for Quality. Recently, he was awarded a fellowship to study the AIDS/HIV pandemic in Africa partly because of his Six Sigma background. Hoerl has co-authored several books with Ronald Snee, including Statistical Thinking: Improving Business Performance (Duxbury Press, 2001).

Ronald D. Snee

Ron Snee is founder and president of Snee Associates, a firm dedicated to the successful implementation of process and organizational improvement initiatives. He provides guidance to senior executives in their pursuit of improved business performance using quality by design, lean Six Sigma, and other improvement approaches that produce bottom-line results. He recently authored three books on lean Six Sigma with Roger W. Hoerl. He is a frequent speaker and has published four books and more than 200 papers in the fields of performance improvement, quality, management, and statistics.

Alexander Eksir

Alexander Eksir is vice president of Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) business unit and serves as mission assurance executive for IDS and Raytheon at large. Eksir is responsible for the development and integration of Raytheon’s mission assurance road map and for providing guidance and mentorship across all levels of Raytheon to ensure flawless program execution and total customer satisfaction. Eksir also serves as the Raytheon IDS lead for Raytheon Six Sigma and quality.