In 2001, Apogee adopted Lean Six Sigma companywide to deliver business results, as well as customer value and satisfaction. During this time, the company has recorded approximately $65 million in hard-cost savings through the disciplined Lean Six Sigma approach to business improvement. The company also surpassed its goal of training 20 percent of its work force in Lean Six Sigma tools by the end of 2006. It is evident that the Apogee culture embraces continuous improvement.

At Apogee, Lean Six Sigma is a world-class business strategy designed to help the company provide better products and services, faster and at a lower cost than our competition. The company is using the Lean Six Sigma fact-based analytical tools and methodologies for preventing defects in products, processes and services, reducing cycle times and controlling costs to generate value for customers.

The combination of Lean Thinking and Six Sigma brings a powerful business improvement process, and a comprehensive set of tools and techniques for problem solving to Apogee and its businesses. Lean Six Sigma is a business strategy for eliminating non-value-added process steps from the customer's view (Lean) and reducing variation within processes (Six Sigma). (The word "sigma" is a statistical term that measures how far a given process deviates from perfection.) The Six Sigma business improvement process was pioneered by Motorola and later embraced by GE.

Every year Apogee trains a significant number of employees in the use of tools for simplifying and perfecting its businesses. These Black Belts (four weeks training) and Green Belts (two weeks training) use Lean Six Sigma tools and methodologies to lead and complete high-impact improvement projects.

The world-class Lean Six Sigma business strategy provides exceptional opportunities for employee development, greater return to shareholders and improved products and services for customers.