Olympic Steel – Minneapolis, MN and Bettendorf, IA Team: Will Robbins, Robert Erion, Betsy Mohrman, Scott Fuller, Josh Rodriguez, Chuck Stipanovich

When a customer challenges us, the best option is to exceed their expectations.

When Olympic Steel’s Bettendorf, IA division was challenged to meet new requirements for a key account, a team from the Minneapolis, MN and Bettendorf, IA facilities implemented a Six Sigma methodology to address the issues and ensure their solutions would be sustainable by establishing new overall processes, rather than responding to each individual issue identified. The results of the project exceeded the customers’ expectations in both the availability of data and the timing. Olympic Steel is one of six suppliers in our category that supports this key account. At the end of the process review, the customer informed the group that they were reducing their suppliers from six to three, and the action taken by the Olympic Steel team (Will Robbins, MN Process Engineer; Robert Erion, MN Safety and Project Manager; Betsy Mohrman, IA Inside Sales Representative, Sr.; Scott Fuller, IA Production Supervisor; Josh Rodriguez, IA Quality Assurance Technician; and Chuck Stipanovich, IA Operations Manager) put them in the running to become one of the three remaining suppliers.

Lesson Learned:

When a customer challenges us, the best option is to exceed their expectations. And, when we are able to collaborate with another division, taking advantage of additional skill sets and expertise in the process, even better! One way or another, our performance is always being evaluated.