PolyOne Corporation implemented a Lean Six Sigma business transformation to improve efficiencies and remain competitive during an economic downturn. With help from Accenture, PolyOne trained over 600 employees in Lean Six Sigma. This resulted in over 200 improvement projects, cost savings of 40%, and increased on-time delivery and customer satisfaction. The transformation was a success, improving PolyOne's financial performance and share price significantly.

1. Driving an Upswing in
a Downturn at PolyOne
High Performance through Business Transformation

2. PolyOne Corporation is a premier global provider of
specialized polymer materials, tailored services and
end-to-end solutions. With more than 10,000 customers
in 35 countries, the company offers more than 35,000
products to a wide range of industries, including building
and construction, electrical and electronics, industrial,
health care, packaging, textiles and transportation, and
several others. Headquartered in northeast Ohio, the
corporation maintains operations in North America,
South America, Europe and Asia, including more than
30 manufacturing facilities in 20 countries. Its 2010
revenues totaled $2.6 billion, which is an increase
of 27 percent versus the full year 2009.
2

3. Facing unprecedented declines in
demand due to the recent global eco-
nomic downturn, PolyOne wanted to
restructure its manufacturing footprint
and implement cost savings initiatives
to remain competitive and mitigate the
effects of the downturn. Strong change
management was needed to improve
efficiencies across all areas of the busi-
ness, break down functional barriers,
and create collaboration between
regions and business units on such
enterprise issues as inventory manage-
ment, price management and sales force
performance. Senior Vice President of
Process Improvement and Supply Chain
Tom Kedrowski described the initiative
by saying, “In the midst of the worst
financial crisis in decades, we com-
mitted resources to improving our
processes for the benefit of our
customers and shareholders.”
Improving cash flow and seeking
greater efficiencies were imperative,
but the leadership team also wanted
to expand PolyOne’s capabilities from
manufacturing cyclical commodity
chemicals to offering more specialized
solutions that require more customer
relationship management skills and
greater sales force effectiveness.
PolyOne’s leaders knew they needed
to bring in greater Lean Six Sigma (LSS)
expertise to achieve a successful
business transformation and get the
company back on the path to high
performance. Desiring a formal and
structured transformation strategy,
company leaders determined to use
Lean Six Sigma as the foundation
to support PolyOne’s four strategic
pillars—specialization, globalization,
operational excellence and commercial
excellence. Opportunities for process
improvement would be split evenly
between manufacturing and commercial
functions.
Prior to the downturn, PolyOne had
initiated a small number of Lean
activities and kaizen (Japanese for
“improvement”) events to improve
efficiency. While these efforts created
small incremental changes in certain
areas of the business, they failed to
achieve significant transformational
process improvements, and the improve-
ments were difficult to execute in a
timely manner.
Many company leaders had worked
with Accenture in the past and knew
our strong track record of delivering
comprehensive solutions on a global
scale and helping clients succeed with
multinational Lean Six Sigma deploy-
ments. To acquire the training needed
to jump-start the company’s transfor-
mation, PolyOne sought guidance from
the Accenture Process & Innovation
Performance team.
Business challenge
3

4. Starting with the LSS turnaround
strategy architected by Tom Kedrowski
in December 2008, Accenture worked
with PolyOne to engage the leadership
team, make key deployment decisions,
build a project pipeline and deliver
LSS training.
More than 20 PolyOne associates from
around the globe gathered to help
create a deployment road map and
make key decisions to guide the effort.
One goal was to ensure that at least
50 percent of the projects focused
on commercial (customer-facing) pro-
cesses and functions to drive greater
benefits to the customer along with
higher revenue growth.
One of the first activities to broadly
engage PolyOne employees involved
conducting workshops to identify
and prioritize projects in key focus
areas, including pricing, sales force
effectiveness, manufacturing efficiency,
sourcing, sales and operations planning,
and inventory management. Accenture
and PolyOne could accelerate the proj-
ect selection process because some
members of the PolyOne LSS deploy-
ment team had previously worked with
Accenture in deploying an LSS trans-
formation. Using their experience, these
members were able to develop a bench-
marking template to help the various
business units focus on project oppor-
tunities in each of the key areas.
But even amidst a great start for
PolyOne, analysts painted a grim pic-
ture of the company’s prospects. One of
these was an equity research analyst
in chemicals. In March 2009, he said,
“We think the odds of (PolyOne) mak-
ing it through this challenging period
without having to file Chapter 11 are
slightly better than 50%.”
Undaunted, PolyOne’s leaders pressed
on toward their goal and investment
to train their associates and execute
the business transformation. In the first
year, Accenture trained more than 600
employees in Lean Six Sigma. Employees
achieve LSS certification in a manner
comparable to martial arts grades, with
various belts awarded to professionals
who advance to higher levels of profi-
ciency. Attendees included employees
engaged in yellow belt training, green
belt training and black belt training.
Accenture also provided training for
leadership team members and project
sponsors. By the end of 2010, PolyOne
had trained more than 25 percent of
its associates from around the globe
in Lean Six Sigma.
How Accenture helped
4

5. 5
In addition to the initial green belt and
black belt training, Accenture helped
PolyOne execute important short-term
kaizen events that yielded encouraging
results and built momentum for further
improvements. Many kaizen events were
identified as part of ongoing green belt
and black belt projects, and they were
completed within the larger project for
enhanced process changes. In addition,
dedicated kaizen leaders were trained
in the United States, Asia and Europe
to leverage the fast results of kaizen
events.
The initial wave of green belt and black
belt projects emerged to a great extent
from management-led project identi-
fication sessions and senior-executive
suggestions; however, LSS projects now
are being initiated by all levels of the
organization and then are being led
by a growing number of experienced
black belt and green belt practitioners
within PolyOne.
In the LSS deployment’s first year,
PolyOne identified more than 400
project opportunities and chartered
about 200 projects that touched all
areas of the business in all areas of the
world. Focus areas included pricing,
inventory management, manufacturing
and distribution footprints, and procure-
ment functions. In addition, several
global projects also focused on sales
force effectiveness and manufacturing
material efficiency.
From the beginning, management’s
determination to foster a climate
of change was a key contributor to
PolyOne’s success. Stephen Newlin,
PolyOne’s chairman, president and
CEO, had set the tone, saying, “Lean
Six Sigma is a process improvement
that brings fundamental and permanent
change to our organization. Everybody
has to participate.” Management pro-
moted participation further through
employee newsletters, Global LSS
Expos, an internal LSS website and the
message, “Profitable growth through
customer focus. It’s everyone’s business.“
5

6. 6
Accenture and the PolyOne executive
team effectively engaged all business
units and functions across multiple
regions and countries. PolyOne achieved
significant savings and began to see a
return on investment much earlier than
expected. Through the effectiveness
of our transformational approach and
partnership, the company realized
significant hard benefits and working
capital reductions of close to 40 percent
(2008 to 2009) by the end of the proj-
ect’s first year. In addition, on-time
delivery has improved from 81 to 95
percent during the same time period
with customer complaints at a histori-
cal low level in 2010. Operating income
growth of PolyOne specialty platform
products is also up by 50 percent
compared to pre-recession periods
(2007 to 2009).
The impact of the LSS projects has
helped improve cash flow and renew
credibility with Wall Street. PolyOne’s
stock price and profits have increased
significantly since the beginning of
2009, and shareholder value has
increased as well. In early 2009, Poly-
One’s share price was trading at $1.34
per share. In the third year of the LSS
transformation, the share price has
increased more than 10-fold, rising to
over $14 per share. What’s more, LSS
projects are driving gross margin
improvement each year over the next
three to four years. The turnaround
was so dramatic that in August 2009,
the same analyst who in March had
given the company only a 50 percent
chance of surviving was telling clients
to buy PolyOne.
Additionally, PolyOne’s first-year
business results coupled with superb
Lean Six Sigma execution culminated
with it being recognized as the “Best
Start-up Program” at the International
Quality and Productivity Center’s (IQPC)
11th Annual Lean Six Sigma and Process
Improvement Summit held in January
2010. Chosen from a pool of 400
entrants, PolyOne received the award
based on its ability to set organizational
direction, deliver business benefits, and
initiate a culture change. The award
has been widely publicized and lauded
within the company, and it was a key
momentum driver for the 2010 Lean
Six Sigma activities.
According to Tom Kedrowski, “Our LSS
success was a direct reflection of our
ability to translate customer feedback
into process improvement projects.
We are thankful to our customers for
partnering with us and allowing us to
transform their needs into mutually
beneficial solutions. The program has
been instrumental in allowing us to
improve customer service and quality
while delivering both balance sheet
and operating margin improvements.”
Supporting their strategy execution
with Lean Six Sigma training and
deployment expertise, Accenture has
been instrumental in helping PolyOne
execute impactful projects and achieve
high performance. The implementation
has been the centerpiece of not only a
very successful relationship, but a solid
partnership between Accenture and
PolyOne—so successful that PolyOne
awarded Accenture Process & Innova-
tion Performance the 2010 Supplier of
the Year Award. PolyOne and Accenture
remain in their third year of partnership
and contiguous Lean Six Sigma deploy-
ment support. The longevity of the
relationship is a direct result of
Accenture’s significant contribution
to the PolyOne business turnaround
in 2009, and continued value from
training and support in North America,
South America, Asia and Europe
through 2011.
In addition to PolyOne, Accenture
has helped numerous other companies
successfully transform their internal
operations and streamline cross-
functional workflows by integrating the
methodologies of Lean and Six Sigma.
This combined management strategy
targets operational speed, quality, cost
reduction and customer satisfaction
in product and service delivery—key
capabilities for organizations pursuing
high performance.
Delivering high performance

7. About Accenture
Accenture is a global management
consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company, with approximately
323,000 people serving clients in more
than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled
experience, comprehensive capabilities
across all industries and business functions,
and extensive research on the world’s
most successful companies, Accenture
collaborates with clients to help them
become high-performance businesses and
governments. The company generated net
revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal
year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page
is www.accenture.com.
About Accenture
Management Consulting
Accenture is a leading provider of
management consulting services
worldwide. Drawing on the extensive
experience of its 13,000 management
consultants globally, Accenture Management
Consulting helps clients move from issue
to outcome, with pace, certainty and
strategic agility. We enable companies
and governments to achieve high
performance by combining broad
and deep industry and functional
offerings and capabilities across seven
service lines: Customer Relationship
Management, Finance & Performance
Management, Process & Innovation
Performance, Risk Management, Talent
& Organization Performance, Strategy,
and Supply Chain Management.
Accenture Process & Innovation
Performance consulting services help
clients to embed continuous business
improvement in an organization’s operational,
process, and innovation capabilities to
enhance long-term profitability.
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