ACE
Acronym for Achieving Competitive Excellence, the continuous improvement program developed at United Technologies Corporation (UTC) in 1998. It is an integrated improvement program that uses the best practices of lean and Six Sigma, such as SPC, TPS, value stream map, waste, and kaizen.
Yuzuru Ito is described as the founder of ACE, when he took over the Quality organization at Otis Elevator. There was also some foundation of lean principles established in the early 1990’s at Otis and Pratt & Whitney with support from Shingijutsu.
UTC is a conglomerate of organizations:
- Otis Elevator
- Pratt & Whitney
- Hamilton Sundstrand
- Carrier
- Goodrich Corporation
- Collins Aerospace
- Raytheon
Influences
- Yuzuru Ito
- Taiichi Ohno
- Shingijutsu
- James P. Womack
- Walter Shewhart
- W. Edwards Deming
- Genichi Taguchi
Links
Additional Resources
- A Brief History of Kaizen: The Key Players– creativesafetysupply.com
- The History of Six Sigma– lean-news.com
- What is Lean manufacturing?– iecieeechallenge.org
- Deming’s Contribution to Japan and Continual Improvement– blog.creativesafetysupply.com
- Jim Womack’s Top Misconceptions of the Lean Movement– kaizen-news.com