Cummins Inc. designs, manufactures, sells, and services diesel engines and related technology around the world. It serves its customers through a network of 500 distributors and more than 5,200 dealer locations in more than 190 countries and territories. Cummins incorporates quality in everything it does by using Six Sigma to continuously improve its products and services. And because Cummins sees no barriers to where and how Six Sigma can be applied, the company has a large and extremely diverse list of improvements. It has completed more than 12,000 projects, saved more than $2 billion, and trained more than 2,700 employees in Six Sigma techniques, including statistical analysis.

Using Six Sigma throughout the entire organization posed a challenge to the company’s Six Sigma training program. Because Cummins employs people with a wide array of skills and backgrounds, participants entered training sessions with a diverse range of statistical knowledge and experience. That made instruction difficult.

“Not everyone who becomes a Master Black Belt is a mathematician,” observes K. Megan Henry, director of Six Sigma at Cummins.

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