Step 7 · 3 min read

Executive summary

The executive summary is the one screen you show leadership. It pulls together your baseline, your fix, your after-numbers, and the projected impact — without you having to assemble a slide deck. This chapter explains how it's built and how to make it sing.

About 3 minutes

What's on it

Four panels and a narrative.

KPI strip

Headline numbers — defect rate, Cpk, sigma level, annual saving.

Before / after

Capability charts side by side so the change is unmissable.

Narrative panel

A short prose section you write — what changed and why it worked.

How it's built

Auto-generated, then yours to refine.

As you fill in the DMAIC tabs and run toolkit tools, LeanProjax populates the executive summary automatically. The KPIs come from your Capability runs, the before/after charts use the measurements you collected, and the schedule strip mirrors the dates in your charter.

The one thing the product can't write for you is the narrative panel — the short paragraph explaining what changed and why it worked. Open the executive summary tab and write it there. Keep it tight: three or four sentences a non-technical reader can skim in twenty seconds.

web.leanprojax.co
leanProjaxWORKSPACEOverviewAssignmentsInvitationsWORKSPACE ADMINSettingsWORKSPACESCOWNEREXECUTIVE SUMMARYDecrease line-3 scrap rate — Q3 initiativeCut line-3 scrap from 7.2% to under 2% by end of Q3, without adding inspection headcountor rework loops; hold the gain through the holiday production push.⏱ Updated May 13, 2026 ✓ Completed Apr 20, 2026CompletedFull report →VOC · CTQ8 · 10Voice & CTQEFFICIENCY8.4%VA ratioHIGH RISK13RPN ≥ 200MEDIUM RISK1RPN 100–199PROCESSES4AnalyzedRECS12ImprovementsSIGMA RANGE1.0–1.4σAcross processesPPK RANGE0.45–0.573 measuredSTABILITY2/31 out of control⇅ OverallInbound material checkStamping operationAssembly cellOutbound packagingVOICE OF CUSTOMER · CTQ8 VOC10 CTQ— 1.3 CTQ per VOC on averageCoverage ratioCOMBINED PARETO · ALL VSM STEPSTop 10 by cycle time across every processCycle (min)
Figure 1The Executive summary — hero, two KPI rows, process tabs, VOC ↔ CTQ coverage, and a combined-process Pareto.
  1. 1Full report → opens the full rendered report; pair it with Download PDF to send it out.
  2. 2Top KPI row — VOC/CTQ counts, efficiency, risk distribution, and the count of recommendations.
  3. 3Sigma + Ppk ranges across processes, plus stability (how many processes are in control).
  4. 4Combined Pareto across every process — red bars are the biggest cycle-time contributors; the blue line is cumulative coverage.

Writing the narrative

A short, honest story beats long spin.

Three sentences, three jobs

  1. What the problem was. One line, in the language a non-quality reader would use.
  2. What you changed. The specific intervention — not the full method, just the result of it.
  3. What it bought you. The measurable improvement and the dollar value (or risk-reduction, or cycle-time-saved).

Tweaks before sharing

What you can control on the report.

Before you export the PDF (next chapter), there are a few cosmetic choices on the executive summary view:

  • Show / hide the activity log. Useful for an internal review, usually off for external sharing.
  • Pick which KPIs to feature. If a particular metric isn't relevant for this audience, hide it.
  • Add or remove stakeholder names. Pulled from the charter by default; override if a reviewer wants anonymity.