Recommendations/Conclusion

The Hertz location at the Newark Liberty Airport is a top 20 location (revenue based) in the United States. There is constant pressure from corporate for them to meet and exceed their KPI goals. They have been able to work through this with their strong commitment and ability to adapt to a continuous process improvement culture. Many of the same Six Sigma and lean methodologies were attempted in other parts of the country however many were unsuccessful.


Being lean isn’t something you just do, it’s a culture that you have to live and breathe. You need to be able to gain the support of all the locations employees and everyone has to be able to adapt to change. This is especially difficult in the locations with more senior employees whose mindset is, “well we have always done it this way” This was one of the difficulties that this location faced. It was through the strong management team lead by Mr. Derek Fong that enabled them to overcome this hurdle. Mr. Fong was actually recently promoted to an Area Manager at another top 50 airport. He is a prime example of what you can accomplish using Six Sigma and lean methodologies.






Limit the number of open 8Ds. Currently the location is expected to start a new 8D every 60 days. The problem however is that most of the time the problems from the previous 8Ds never get fully corrected. The attention is directed at all of the newer ones and the results from the previous ones are not sustained. Our recommendation is to complete one 8D at least every 90 days. We also recommend that different team members are used on each one that way they can devote their full attention to the project from start through sustainment.



Another thing that we recommend is to get more employee involvement when reviewing the value stream map. Currently the results are only reported to management. This leaves out the front line employees who are essentially responsible for driving the results. They should be included in this as they should know that their hard work has paid off through the improving metrics. This will also further encourage them and drive an overall process improvement culture throughout the location.