Sydney Ingles

Engineering Manager, AHF Products, York, PA, USA

As Engineering Manager, Sydney Ingles has several years of process improvement experience through AHF products in the flooring manufacturing sector. As both a leader and a problem solver, she has been on the frontlines of many improvements ranging from process improvements to technical root cause analysis and beyond. Her technical knowledge, financial acumen, and adaptability have allowed her opportunities to expand Six Sigma concepts outside of traditional channels in administrative improvements and team building techniques. Sydney has overseen the internal coordination of both Six Sigma Green Belt and Black Belt certification at both a local plant level and through a corporate integration for the past four years. As a Six Sigma black belt, she has been responsible for multiple project implementations as well as internal mentoring for Green Belt candidates. Currently, the program has generated, over $5 Million in savings cumulatively, and the amount of interested candidates grows with each passing year. She has developed a passion for teaching leadership through demonstration and skill building via the use of Six Sigma methodologies. By creating an atmosphere where questioning the daily normal is not only acceptable, but expected she has been able to develop teams beyond original capabilities.Sydney holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Saint Louis University with a Minor in Engineering Mathematics. Through the course of her career, she has held titles of process engineer, operations leader, and mechanical project engineer.

Where's the Team?

After working as a six-sigma mentor and program coordinator for multiple years at a company I began to notice a pattern in our six sigma projects where they generally fell under one of a few outcomes: a raging success completed quickly with lasting success, a project that made it to implementation but eventually the results were lost and the problem returned, or a half-hearted attempt that generally never made it past the “Define” phase over the course of several months. As I began to dig deeper into this phenomenon a few important trends began to pop out to me. Some of the strongest individual contributors fail to be successful at six sigma project implementations, while some traditionally weaker employees can prove to be more successful through this process. Why? It is all in the project team. I have seen strong individual contributors fail because they attempt to resolve the issue using only their own knowledge or through limited interactions with the appropriate resources while the traditionally weaker employee can be successful by leaning on their team to resolve the issue. From my experience, the single most important factor to a successful project implementation and sustainment stems from how successful the project facilitator is at gathering and meaningfully engaging a cross-functional team through the course of the entire project.In many organizations six sigma training is either a requirement for mandatory skill development or a privilege granted to the highest performers. In some cases, there is a heavy emphasis on statistics and technical concepts of six sigma that can come with strict rules for tool implementation with little focus on actual leadership and change development. Effectively engaging team members generates a sense of ownership across multiple departments and individuals, inspiring a greater sense of responsibility through the root cause identification and, more importantly, through the “Control” phase implementation. The accountability level from management exists from project assignment, but through appropriate team creation there is an additional level of accountability that is generated from the team members back to the project facilitator with the ultimate desire to alleviate a pain point within their jobs. From my experiences, this “accountability sandwich” is the key driving force to taking six sigma projects through completion and onto sustainment. In this presentation I will focus on how vital it is to develop and inspire project facilitators to become change agents within the organization through team leadership and how to generate the appropriate amount of accountability from both levels. As management, learning how to ask "Where's the team?" before "Where's the results" will induce far more success.