Vista, Calif. - Apollo Sprayers International, Inc. announced the progress of their intensive systems reorganization undertaken with the Lean Six Sigma Institute (LSSI) which has expanded Apollo’s manufacturing capabilities, factory and warehouse facilities and the institution of a new position being filled by David Ifrid as Value Stream Manager.

John Darroch, Apollo’s President and CEO, said, “This is a very exciting time for Apollo Sprayers. Responding to worldwide demand for essential professional HVLP equipment in a variety of industries, we have undergone an intensive capacity transformation in the past 7 months. We’re welcoming David Ifrid on board to bring his logistics and Lean Six Sigma experience to help us maintain our forward momentum. “

David Ifrid was born and raised in San Diego and has as over twenty years of management experience in the logistics field, with the past 12 years working with the supply chain giant, Ceva Logistics. David Ifrid said, “I completed the Lean Six Sigma Training three years ago and was impressed by how much more efficient and organized the business became and the resulting increase in throughput.”

John Darroch said, “As we’ve moved through the LSSI program we’ve incorporated concepts such as kaizen, where we carefully examine every small element in a particular process, finding out how to eliminate waste of both time and effort. You emerge with a streamlined process that greatly improves efficiency and results.” The kaizen process is backed up by a weekly quality inspection known as the genba walk. Based on the Japanese word for “the real place,” the genba walk takes management to the front lines to look for waste and opportunities to practice shop floor improvement.

Darroch describes the effects of these disciplines; “everyone in the company is directly involved in improving how we organize inventory, how we manufacture, how we ship, how we deal with our supply chain, and how we serve our customers, step by step. It’s logical and very powerful in its effect.”

David Ifrid is happy to be joining the Apollo team at this important moment. He looks forward to bringing his past experience and skill sets to support Apollo growth. He said, “After interviewing with John Darroch and the staff, I saw a team that was very committed to growth using Lean Six Sigma.”

At Ceva Logistics, Ifrid ran high profile projects including a $20million program for Dell Computers through a Lean Six Sigma program. He stated, “ After LEAN was implemented, we saw vast quality improvement and a 35% increase in throughput. With the faster turnaround times and a lower error rate, our customer Dell was very pleased with their service.”

Lean Six Sigma is a fusion of programs developed by Toyota and Motorola that are dedicated to achieving “business and operational excellence.”

Source: Apollo Sprayers International