Portfolio

Case studies and white papers teach lessons learned

We're passionate about our customers, and about their success. We've dedicated this section of the website to sharing our customer's stories.

Case Studies outline solutions that we have delivered to our clients. White papers explore particular topics in depth.

Some of these documents may be downloaded directly from this site. Others ask for your name and e-mail address in exchange for the download. Our privacy policy outlines how we protect your private information.

Case Studies

  • Real-time Data Drives a Hole-in-one
    The current issue of Plastics Business magazine examines Hertzler customer Acushnet Company in this feature story. Acushnet is the maker of the number one ball in golf: Titleist. According to Ken Welchman, Director of Corporate Quality, “When you are The #1 Ball In Golf, everyone is gunning for you. In order to maintain our competitive advantage, we need to improve our products and services every day. The quality of our products is judged every day by the best golfers in the world.”

  • Hormel Foods Weight Control Program - Video Presentation
    In this live video presentation, Marty Slagel, Corporate Staff Quality Engineer, describes how Hormel Foods implemented real-time weight control across their corporation.

  • Acushnet Supplier Improvement Program - Live Podcast
    In this live podcast from the IQPC Six Sigma Summit on January 30, 2008 in Orlando, Florida, Ken Welchman, Director of Quality, Golf Ball Operations at Acushnet Company, describes how the company (makers of Titleist Golf Balls) has built their Supplier Improvement Program around GainSeeker Suite.

  • Walking the talk - How Micropump built a comprehensive data system to empower their people with data
    While you'd be hard pressed to find a Six Sigma Black Belt who would say that data is not important, our actions often speak louder than words. Too often projects are scoped using estimates, and Black Belts and Green Belts scramble to find data to quantify the problem. This article describes how the Six Sigma effort at Micropump and Hertzler Systems' software solutions have come together to yield outstanding results.

  • GainSeeker OPC solution boosts OEE from 65% to 75%
    New features in GainSeeker Suite V7.2 speed integration with process control systems, result in substantial payoff for Hertzler customer.

White Papers

  • Aberdeen Cost of Quality Report (email required)
    By special agreement with the Aberdeen Group, Hertzler Systems has arranged to provide our customers with free access to Aberdeen's ground breaking report on the state of manufacturing quality. The report, titled "The Cost of Quality - Benchmarking Enterprise Quality Management" examines the common underlying strategies of Best-in-Class quality performers.

    Enterprise quality management requires transitioning from a disjointed set of quality processes to an automated set of integrated work flows based upon established best practices. Leveraging such a set of automated work flows allows manufacturers to transform disparate silos of quality data into actionable intelligence, enabling manufacturers to improve finished product quality and reduce the cost of both good and poor quality.

  • Eight Aspects of the Data Driven Business – Exploring your Gap to Entitlement
    While you’d have to travel a long way to find a business leader who would argue against the need to create a data driven organization, if you put a dozen leaders in a room you’d probably end up with nearly a dozen definitions of the ‘data driven organization’. Lacking a common understanding of the data driven organization, leaders sometimes accept as status quo something less than a true data driven organization. They accept something less than their entitlement.

    This white paper proposes a common definition of the data driven organization. It also proposes a model for evaluating how effective AND efficient your organization is in using data.

  • Aberdeen Lean Six Sigma Benchmark Report (email required)
    A new study conducted by the Aberdeen Group and sponsored by Hertzler Systems Inc., “The Lean Six Sigma Benchmark”, finds that companies using technology to support their Six Sigma efforts are much more successful in lowering defect rates. The report examines the strategies, enablers, and technologies used by best-in-class Lean Six Sigma manufacturers in their pursuit of perfection. More than 400 companies participated in the study, including Boeing, Glaxo SmithKline, Rexam, Tyco Electronics, EMC, GE, and GM.

  • Leveraging Technology to Transform Culture (email required)
    Six Sigma programs are complex and multi-dimensional efforts that require a fundamental transformation of business culture. This transformation unleashes the human potential in the organization by relying on data – rather than opinion, job title or organizational hierarchy – as the basis for decision making. Technology that makes it easy to get to the data you need can be a powerful tool for transformation to a Six Sigma culture.

  • Freeing Six Sigma from the ‘Data Shuffle’
    “I had these two high-powered and highly compensated engineers – really two of my best people – spending hours scrubbing data and building databases to get the information they needed for their projects.”
    The Six Sigma community puts up with an amazing amount of busy work in order to become data driven. This paper looks at the costs and underlying causes for the Six Sigma Data Shuffle and examines how one client tackled the problem.