The China National BlueStar Co Ltd, the nation’s leading chemical company, won a prominent award for management excellence and competitiveness at the awarding ceremony of the third ISSSP Leadership Conference China in this city on Dec 7.
The award BlueStar won was called the Asia-Pacific Six Sigma Leadership Award, and the company was only the second Chinese enterprise to take the award.
The ISSSP, or the International Society of Six Sigma Professionals, was founded in the United States in 1997. There have been nine of the annual ISSSP Leadership Conferences held in the US to promote the Six Sigma methodology.
The meeting is to recognize business professionals, those with strong management skills, strong competitiveness, and loyal customers.
Six Sigma is a modern management method. Developed in the US in 1986, it was first used in industry to improve output quality by identifying the causes of defects in manufacturing and business, and removing them.
Previous award winners have included leading businesses like Honeywell International, GE, 3M, DuPont, Raytheon and Seagate Technology.
The ISSSP came to China two years ago to promote the methodology in Chinese enterprises. The Asia-Pacific Leadership Award is given to just one company each year.
State-owned BlueStar has been trying to improve itself along the guidelines of Lean Six Sigma - a combination of Six Sigma ideas and a production model aimed at higher efficiency, lower waste.
The company was given the China Six Sigma Best Practice Award last year.
“We not only create economic and social value, but also keep improving ourselves by introducing the best practices used worldwide,” explained Lu Xiaobao, general manager of BlueStar.
“We are promoting the Lean Six Sigma ideas and a series of other programs to upgrade the company’s core competitiveness and management skills.”
All BlueStar employees use the Lean Six Sigma methodology as a means of reducing costs and improving the production processes, Lu said.
“The Six Sigma method calls for better management and technological innovation and will be an essential part of BlueStar’s competitiveness,” he added.
The company is focusing on new chemical materials and nutritious additives for animal feed. It is a subsidiary of the ChinaChem Group Corp with total assets of 50 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) and annual revenues of 40 billion yuan.
Since 2006, it has acquired four companies overseas, including the US’ Blackstone, the world’s biggest private equity firm.
