Maple Leaf Foods

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Six Sigma Implementation at Maple Leaf Foods Maple Leaf Foods is a Canadian food processing company with annual sales of $6.4 billion. In 2005, the company was selling their products under three brand names: Maple Leaf, Schneiders, and Dempsters. These were divided into two major groups, one of meat and meat products and one of bakery goods. In 1999, MLF started to use the Six Sigma system to better their products and production processes. Six Sigma is a system that allows companies to isolate the exact number of errors in their production, operating under the assumption that if it is possible to isolate an error it is possible to correct it. By 2005, MLF had had success with this system and wanted to spread it to a new area. This new program was called “Six Sigma @ The Edge” and was designed to engage front line employees in the Six Sigma methodology. MLF’s Rivermede plant was part of the bakery line of MLF products. At this plant, products were baked to 90% and quick-frozen for shipping to customers, who would do the last 12-15 minutes of baking, mostly in in-store bakeries. Anthony Scire was the plant manager and had been at this job since 2003. The plant employed 175 unionized hourly workers. Rivermede had a failed start with Six Sigma in 2001. However, the black belts made during that false start implemented many successful projects and Anthony Scire had a positive view of the Six Sigma philosophy and methodology. He estimated that about one-third of the plant workforce had experience with the Six Sigma system. While Anthony was certainly interest in the full implementation of Six Sigma, he wondered if the plant was ready. Under Six Sigma, the objective was to build a corporate culture of continuous improvement, recognizing that this would be a journey, not a one-off program. It is a comprehensive program that starts with a philosophy, but it

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