The Global Six Sigma & Business Improvement Awards, organized by WCBF, announces that Mark Pigott, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PACCAR has been named the Six Sigma & Business Improvement CEO of the Year.

The awards ceremony will take place at WCBF Global Lean, Six Sigma and Business Improvement Summit on October 15 in Orlando.

Six Sigma has played a major role in PACCAR’s worldwide growth and profitability since 1997. Revenues have increased from $6.5 billion in 1997 to $15.2 billion in 2007. 12,000 employees, as well as dealers and suppliers, are trained to use Six Sigma to evaluate engineering design, assembly procedures, sales ordering and financial transactions. PACCAR has implemented more than 7,600 Six Sigma projects that have delivered over $1.5 billion in cumulative savings since 1997.

One of the most successful and innovative Six Sigma initiatives at PACCAR is the High Impact Kaizen Event (HIKE). HIKE’s combine the power of Lean and Six Sigma to make significant improvements across multiple functions of an operation in just four weeks. HIKE’s have been successfully deployed throughout all PACCAR locations and businesses, many supplier facilities, and customer sites.

“PACCAR and its customers have benefited from Six Sigma and HIKE initiatives which have delivered world-class product quality, efficiency improvements and innovative customer service programs,” shared Pigott. “Since the establishment of Six Sigma in 1998, the company has achieved improved operating efficiencies in its manufacturing facilities of 5-7% per year. Six Sigma has also contributed towards improving logistics performance and the quality of components delivered by the company’s suppliers.”

The Global Six Sigma Awards program was established in 2006 to identify outstanding organizational success achieved through the application of Six Sigma methodologies.

The Six Sigma & Business Improvement CEO of the Year Award is the premium of 18 categories within The Global Six Sigma & Business Improvement Awards program. The 2008 program has received entries from organizations based in Australia, Canada, India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the United States.