INITIATIVE | 040 At Shaw, we believe in deeds over words and in achieving the most with the least. We believe that practical and pragmatic actions yield the best results and demonstrate leadership. We are ambitious about the future, and we're careful by nature. That's because our commitments are significant and long-term. Shaw is an enterprise of improvement, working towards a thriving business now and long into the future.
Great products and services are important, but they're only part of a successful company's approach. Six Sigma is a statistically based process improvement strategy, which has been established as a major component of the core business discipline at Shaw. The methodology employs a disciplined and definitive system for improvement: Define-Measure-Action-Improve-Control (DMAIC). As improvement opportunities are identified and achieved, they become part of our standard operating procedures, maintained through the Shaw Quality System (SQS).
Six Sigma is a powerful strategy with proven tools and methods for improving processes in manufacturing, service, sales and administration. It also encourages partnerships with key suppliers and customers on a variety of improvement opportunities. Six Sigma projects are closely linked to our key goals, provide tremendous value to the company, are fairly quick to implement, and are measurable. Right now, there are over 1000 Six Sigma projects underway at Shaw. We're identifying savings all across the company, and as a result we're reducing the amount of water we use in our operations, the number of kilowatts of energy used in our plants, looking into alternative disposal methods like selling our leftover lint to other industries, reducing the amount of waste going to landfills, even insulating our doors to save heat. It's all a part of our Six Sigma strategy to do the most with the least, and it's working! Six Sigma projects from 1999 to the present have resulted in over $650 million in savings at Shaw. That's a Green Edge with a huge impact on our bottom line.
