Any ideas and your reasons?

GE, CATERPILARHPand many more are the giant of six sigma and now lin-sigma applicatioins

Lean-Sigma

GE use to have a high focus on 6 Sigma till Jack's time... Jeff initiated Lean and has been a focus of leaders across the organization...But with the results they gave last week...think again!

Which consulancy has the best op ex practice?

PA's BOP, without a doubt

Good loyalty, but no.PA BOP is no better than PWC Performance Improvement, E&Y Process Excellence, Deloitte Operational Excellence, or the new ACN/George Group. Cap's got a growing practice and McKinsey has a Lean Ops side to it now. Everyone's having a dabble but some are relatively new.There are plenty of specialist consultancies in this area who are better though.

Who would you say are better and wuld you put any particular ranking on the more well known names you stated below?

ACN/George GroupIs this an ACN/Asda joint venture?

Good one about the Asda/George thingy.PA BOP are certainly the oldest, and best respected of any of the operational improvement outfits.We have a young, dynamic and really driven bunch of consultants, who have won award after award at the MCA.We are, without doubt, the leader in ops improvement, particularly in the central and local government sector

So PA 1st? Who else? What about Accenture and Cap?

Yes PA do have some good consultants in this area, but is all of BOP involved with Lean/Six Sigma/Operational Excellence? I read several case studies a while ago and comparing them to those of the companies below got the impression BOP was much more general.The question leads me more to specialists like Rath & Strong, who were actually involved in shaping what we know of as Six Sigma and have been around since the mid thirties.Celerant Consulting & Venturehaus also have very good reputations in this area.Incidentally George Group have been around for over 20 years as well and always pretty well respected, if a bit stat focused in Six Sigma. Not sure how they'll do with Accenture.Keen to hear your thoughts BOPper.

BearingPoint - strangely enough - are very prominent in the Six Sigma space. Big LSS practice in the US - where they have won major LSS contracts against the George Group for clients like the US Navy. Its Nordics team is very prominent in Opex for Financial Services. Not so sure of what they have done in this area in the UK.

The best of the big firms is IBM by a million miles, however there are many smaller firms that are better than IBM.

Good thread thanks. When basing these rankings what is the criteria for this? I am keen to move from industry and want to have a feel for the stongest players. I know McKinsey are big on lean. Where do Unipart figure in the list?

Rakesh - Bearingpoint aren't big in this space in the UK yet, growing across Europe though.Ohno - GBS aren't actually too impressive in that area.Anon - Unipart are completely different, manufacturing & supply chain. Most of the companies talked about so far focus more on services. Probably a different list.

Milliken & Company - they now have their own Performance Solutions business - devoted to helping clients globally with employee ownership for problem-solving across the business. They have won many awards for 'doing' this sustainably for 20 years, unlike pure consultancy companies who teach and move on.