Certiport, Inc. (American Fork, UT) – Lean Six Sigma Business Transformation
The Challenge:
Certiport, a worldwide provider of on-line training and certification products for Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA, etc., was finding it difficult to deliver their localized (translated) products to the market as per commitments to partners and customers.
The Solution:
Certiport required a faster process (speed) without sacrificing quality, the perfect opportunity to apply Lean Six Sigma best practices. Working closely with Certiport’s staff, we quickly mapped the existing localization process steps along with timed spec limits for each step. A reliable approach was set out for collecting time sequence data within, and between, each step as the team ran 35 simultaneous localization projects over a four-month period.
As is often the case, the data did not support where staff thought problems were, but clearly pointed to areas where real improvement could be realized. Focusing on the “low hanging fruit” identified through data analysis, we led a multi-departmental team to brainstorm solution paths for each opportunity. The process changes were relatively simple and implemented quickly.
We realized a 37% improvement within 60 days, shaving 27.6 days off the localization processes and meeting customer expectations. Additional wins were the products in market 37% faster, and process improvements that could be applied across all the localized products.