Feature Story

Sun Sigma at work.

Three examples of Sun Sigma projects that have lead to business improvements.

Solaris Download Program

Sun's Solaris Download program is a hit among developers and systems administrators--so successful that senior executives began to wonder whether the costs were beginning to outweigh the advantages. One initial gut reaction was to kill the program. The Solaris team, however, used Sun Sigma methods to prove that the success of the program wasn't to blame; rather, it was the failure of the public Internet to successfully support the transfer of massive files. When an attempt failed, customers had no choice but to reconnect and start anew. This data led the program's owners to break the files into much smaller chunks, which reduced the failure rate by 45 percent, and Solaris continues to offer free downloads.

Sun's Floor-Tile-Ready Systems Program

In the course of a process re-invention, Sun's Floor-Tile-Ready systems program evolved into a highly successful, mainstream business. Using Sun Sigma methodologies, the team architected a new way of deploying highly complex servers into a customer's environment--ready to go, once connected to power and the network. Through pre-configured systems, customers deploy their new systems 90 percent faster: installations previously taking a week now take just hours. Order placement to shipment receipt occurs in five days and customers are enjoying a 15 percent cost savings, as well.

E10K Qualification Process

Not content to rest on the success of its Sun Enterprise 10000 servers, a Sun Sigma team attacked the pre-qualification process--an important step in helping customers succeed. Over time and with increasing technical complexity, however, the steps required became a source of frustration for customers--often to the point where some savvy sales reps were circumventing the pre-qualifying process to keep customers satisfied. A Sun Sigma team (which included the acknowledged king of circumvention) examined the pre-qualification process and reduced the time to pre-qualify a customer from more than a week to about 48 hours.

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