In Six Sigma, a defect is defined as anything that could lead to customer dissatisfaction and / or does not meet business set specifications. Six Sigma seeks to identify and remove the causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and/or service delivery and business processes.
It uses a “process oriented” way of thinking, based on data, and using a proven problem solving methodology and toolset including statistical methods, and creates a dedicated infrastructure of people within the organization who are experts in these methods.
Six Sigma aims to deliver “Breakthrough Performance Improvement” from current levels in business and customer relevant operational and performance measures in sigma standard measurement.
Six Sigma initiatives are planned and implemented in organizations on “Project by Project” basis. Each project aims not only to improve a chosen performance metric but also sustain the improvement achieved.
Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets like revenue increase, cost reduction or profit increase by controlling business / operational elements like:
- Customer Satisfaction Rating Score
- Time taken to respond to customer queries or complaints
- % Defect rate in Manufacturing
- Cost of executing a business process transaction
- Yield (Productivity) of service operations or production
- Inventory turns (or) Days of Inventory carried
- Billing and Cash Collection lead time
- Equipment Efficiency (Downtime, time taken to fix etc.,)
- Accident / Incident rate
- Time taken to recruit personnel and so on…
What is Lean?
Lean is a philosophy and set of management techniques focused on continuous “eliminating
waste” so that every process, task or work action is made “value adding” (the real output customer pays for!!) as viewed from customer perspective.
Lean “waste elimination” targets the “Eight Wastes” namely:
- Overproduction – Making more than what is needed by customer / market demand
- Over-processing - Doing more to a product/service (but not perceived as value by customer)
- Waiting – For material, information, people, equipment, procedures, approvals and more
- Transportation – Movement of products / items during or after production
- Defects – Errors, mistakes, non-complying products, services, documents, transactions
- Rework and Scrap – Products, transactions or outputs not meeting specifications and have to be fixed, redone, rectified, marked down or scrapped / unusable.
- Motion – Mainly people, document movement, searching etc.
- Inventory – Buffer stocks or resources (Raw, Work in process, FG, Bench staff etc.,)
Wastes make the organization slow, inefficient and uncompetitive. Lean methods help to remove / reduce waste and contributes to driving “business agility” (velocity) through smooth work flow across the organization resulting in rapid fulfillment of customer needs in an optimum manner.
Six Sigma Methodology
Six Sigma has two key methodologies:
- DMAIC
- DMADV, both inspired by Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle.
DMADV is used to create new product or process designs.
DMAIC
The basic DMAIC methodology consists of the following five steps:
- Define process improvement goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy.
- Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.
- Analyze the data to verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.
- Improve or optimize the process based upon data analysis using techniques like Design of Experiments.
- Control to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, move on to production, set up control mechanisms and continuously monitor the process.
The basic methodology consists of the following five steps:
- Define design goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy.
- Measure and identify CTQs (characteristics that are Critical To Quality), product capabilities, production process capability, and risks.
- Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create a high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design.
- Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. This phase may require simulations.
- Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to the process owners.
SIX SIGMA CERTIFICATION LEVEL
- Master Black Belts, identified by champions, act as in-house coaches and subject matter experts on Six Sigma. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They assist champions and guide Black Belts and Green Belts. Apart from statistical tasks, their time is spent on ensuring consistent application of Six Sigma across various functions and departments.
- Black Belts operate under Champions and Master Black Belts to apply Six Sigma methodology to specific projects. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They primarily focus on Six Sigma project execution, whereas Champions and Master Black Belts focus on identifying projects/functions for Six Sigma.
- Green Belts are employees who undertake Six Sigma implementation along with their other job responsibilities. They operate under the guidance of Black Belts.
- Yellow Belts are anyone that has registered in a Six Sigma basic Training and pass the exams. Yellow belts is the first certification level of Six Sigma.
When we want
to launch Lean Six
Sigma initiatives in our organization, we have to
prepare not only people that have Six Sigma certification level, we have to
prepare an organization that delivered as a structure engagement covering:
- Executive Overview, Introduce Lean Six Sigma to the Top/Senior Management from a strategic perspective
- Champion Program, Create leaders in-company to identify breakthrough opportunities and oversee projects
- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Blends Classroom with On-site project guidance to develop Green Belt Practitioners
- Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Blends Classroom with On-site project guidance to develop Black Belt practitioners
- Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Blends Classroom with Coaching to develop Subject matter experts
- Design for Six Sigma, Blends Classroom with On-site project guidance to develop “Right First Time” Product and Process designers
How To Get
CERTIFIED
"There is no
single certification body designated to provide Lean Six Sigma Certification to
business professionals".
The unique of Lean Six Sigma certification is there
are many organization provide training, consulting and certification just like
operational excellence consulting companies in the world and also many big corporates
develop their own training and certification based on their best practice, such
as Motorola, Xerox, GE and many others.
- Acuity Institute [Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Kaizen, Change Management and Lean]
- Air Academy Associates [Six Sigma, Lean, DFSS and other concepts]
- American Society for Quality [White Belt, Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Master Black Belt, Lean, DFSS and various other courses]
- Aveta Business Institute [Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Master Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma and DFSS]
- Bitspec [Yellow Belt, Green Belt and Black Belt]
- BMGI [Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Champion and Innovation]
- e-Zsigma [White Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Lean and various short courses]
- Global Quality Systems [Green Belt and Black Belt]
- International Institute for Learning [Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and Project Management for Six Sigma]
- Juran Institute [Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Auditing, Lean, Lean Six Sigma, Project Management, Root Cause Corrective Action, Six Sigma, and Statistics]
- Key Performance [Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt]
- Knowledge Platform [Yellow Belt and Green Belt]
- Lean Sigma Corporation [Yellow Belt, Green Belt and Black Belt]
- MindPro [White Belt, Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Master Black Belt, Lean Sigma and various other courses]
- MoreSteam [White Belt, Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Master Black Belt, Lean, DFSS and various short courses]
- Pivotal Resources [Introduction to Six Sigma]
- Pyzdek Institute [Green Belt and Black Belt]
- Six Sigma eLearning [Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and change leadership]
- SixSigma.us [White Belt, Yellow Belt, Green Belt and Black Belt]
- The Quality Group [White Belt, Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Master Black Belt, Champion and Project Management]
- Workplace Academy [Lean Six Sigma Certifications – Voucher code "iSS20" for 20% off Yellow and Green Belt courses]
WHAT SIX SIGMA
CERTIFICATION LEVEL DO I NEED?
Determining what
Lean Six Sigma certification level you need is not as hard as you may think. Once
you understand the differences, you can easily figure out what Lean Six Sigma Level
to pursue.
SIX SIGMA YELLOW
BELTS
Six Sigma Green Belts are trained to understand the
basic knowledge of Six Sigma methodology and tools, approximately take 3 to 5
days of training. Many Six Sigma training provider merge this training to the
Green Belt program.
SIX SIGMA GREEN
BELTS
Six Sigma Green
Belts are trained to solve many process problems through approximately 10 days
of training. Usually they are process leaders or work within processes, such as
employees within the accounting group or on a manufacturing line.
Their role is to
implement Lean Six Sigma projects within their department and as part of their
job; as such, they “do” Six Sigma and improve processes they are a part of on a
part-time basis.
As part of their
Green Belt role, they lead fellow team members through the project framework
and toolset, evaluate solutions and reduce defects in the process. Normally,
they will have the support of a Black Belt to whom they are assigned for
coaching and mentoring.
A typical Six Sigma Green Belt project may deliver
anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 of financial benefit to the organization.
Six Sigma Black
Belts are trained to solve many process problems through approximately 20 days
of training. With this much training, they are considered highly trained in the
complete set of Lean and Six Sigma methods and tools.
As compared to
Green Belts, Black Belts implement improvement projects that are much more
complex and strategically-important to the business, oftentimes
cross-functional or requiring significant data or leadership skills to
accomplish. They also work on the project(s) full time.
In addition to
executing Six Sigma projects, they regularly coach/mentor Green Belts who are
assigned to them. A Six Sigma Black Belt may coach anywhere from two to 10
Green Belts at a time.
A typical Six
Sigma Black Belt project may deliver anywhere from $50,000 to $350,000 of
financial benefit to the organization.
SIX SIGMA MASTER
BLACK BELTS
Six Sigma Master
Black Belts are the most comprehensively trained and are the most skilled
practitioners of Lean and Six Sigma. They are often experts in leadership,
facilitation, root cause analysis, and strategic management, in addition to
being trained in Design for Six Sigma methodology.
They should be the
pinacle of change management, able to lead any group or project to successful
completion. They often set strategic direction for an organization, remove
roadblocks facing Black Belts or Green Belts assigned to them, and deliver or
oversee training of employees in their organization.
A Six Sigma Master Black Belt may coach anywhere from
two to 10 Black Belts at a time.
HOW DO YOU GET
LEAN SIX SIGMA CERTIFIED?
Start the opportunity, contact local or online
training provider, go through the training program and get certified, so
simple.
Henry, Certified Lean Six Sigma
“think simple is the way to solve complexity”
www.jerukbali.com
“think simple is the way to solve complexity”
www.jerukbali.com
