For the past two years, we've had a team working literally "At the Customer, For the Customer" with CSX Transportation at their offices in Jacksonville, Florida. The original idea was to work on a few joint Six Sigma projects together, but it evolved into a full-fledged company-wide initiative, training program and culture change at CSX.

One of the first things we learned is that the customer's culture is different from ours, and your way of doing things may not be the most effective way for your customer. Understanding CSX's motivations and what really matters to them made all the difference.

CSX has strong corporate values, including putting the customer first and using fact-based management, that makes Six Sigma a good fit for them. One year into their initiative, more than 25% of CSX's employees have gone through some level of Six Sigma training and they have 69 full-time Black Belts and 5 Master Black Belts among them. CSX has realized $17 million in annual savings from projects on service delivery, industrial work orders, locomotive fueling, demurrage billing, crew taxis and legal expenditures. Six Sigma has become part of CSX's strategic plan and part of their culture.

I'm proud to have been part of a GE team that has helped CSX embrace Six Sigma. I'm especially looking forward to learning how CSX adapts our tools and puts its own stamp on Quality...and taking that back to GE!