The 10 most common six sigma questions… and their responses.
 
1. What industries are using Six Sigma today?
Six Sigma can be used within any industry that produces a product or service. It is utilized heavily within industry, healthcare, government, financial, hospitality, transportation, and food service industries.
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2. What is the difference between Lean and Six Sigma?
Six Sigma methodology is a framework driven by leadership, it can be achieved without lean and builds on lean operations. Six Sigma is a problem solving methodology that strives for delivering high performance reliability and value by improving processes, reducing defects and variation.
Lean emphasizes waste and streamlining operations for maximum throughput. It is driven by middle management, synchronizes resource utilization, provides tools to sustain and lean can be considered a prerequisite for six sigma implemented for the purposes of efficiency and waste reduction.
In improvements Six Sigma is more like an axe and lean is like a scalpel.
                                                  Six Sigma                                                                                                                              Lean​       

 3. How is six sigma structured?
The structure will vary based on each company’s size and structure. Six Sigma is scalable. Each level of the company’s organizational hierarchy has roles and responsibilities. We will elaborate in more depth each of the components of the Six Sigma hierarchy in the Six Sigma basics in a later chapter. Primarily the hierarchy consists of champions, black, yellow, and green belts.
Six Sigma Belts are participants in Six Sigma projects and the foundation of the process. They use DMAIC tools to promote problem solving, data collection, data interpretation, variation, process capability, and cost analysis

4.  What are the requirements for belt training? Simply put didactic training for the yellow, green, and black belts. Green and Blackbelts typically require a written examination and completion of 1 to2 projects.

5. Is recertification required? No. Once you receive your certification there are no renewal requirements but an expected level of interaction with projects to maintain proficiency.

6.  Must the belts be obtained in order? Typically one would begin with yellow belt and progress to green or black belt certification at a later time with experience within projects. Dependent upon the trainees experience level with business analysis, project management, and mathematics one may begin with a green belt certification.

7. Why become certified or have my employees certified? Six Sigma provides a time tested reliable methodology to make improvements.  Certification shows industry expertise in the industry and demonstrates to employers training in basic problem solving skills and the statistical tools needed to work effectively on process improvement.

8. What is the DMAIC methodology? DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.  It is a tested methodology with tools for all applications to manage a project for improvement from start to finish.

9. How long does training take for certification? This varies by provider. For the Institute for Strategic Improvement we recommend 3 to 4 months for a greenbelt to accomplish a project and complete the necessary didactic training. Timelines vary based on an individual’s complementary skills like work experience in project management. We require homework, certification testing and a project.

10. Will it really benefit me or my company? Yes industry statistics show higher earning potential from belted individuals and better performance results from belted professionals. ​

Improved Customer Loyalty
Six Sigma can help your company with an almost endless multitude of improvement opportunities. Let’s discuss improved customer service as just one facet of the Sig Sigma landscape. Improved customer loyalty is accomplished by using Six Sigma tools to improve problem areas identified by the customer. The importance of customer loyalty cannot be underestimated in both short and long term profit margins of a business and Six Sigma can help your company get there. In order to improve customer loyalty it is important to understand the Voice of the Customer (VOC) and how to measure customer loyalty. Once the voice and measures are established Six Sigma process teams are able to pinpoint the required improvements and can ultimately and the project and its actions to the employees who have the most interaction with customers.  To improve customer loyalty there are several steps that can be taken using Six Sigma.

• Determine the voice of the customer in terms of customer loyalty to determine if the stakeholders are and what you will use to measure success criteria.
• Feed the success criteria into a system which allows for reaction.
• Six Sigma tools should be used such as Fish Bone Diagrams, Value Stream Mapping, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and analysis of wastes.
• Determine improvement indices targets to determine customer satisfaction levels after the improvements are implemented to build a sustainable customer centric culture.
• Six Sigma is most instrumental for customer loyalty in determining the upper control and lower control limits, variability in processes, and variability in measurements for customer satisfaction and customer service data.

In the spirit of our top ten lists we will be adding top ten updates in between regular blogs.

Top Ten questions to ask for potential Six Sigma Projects
1. What problem(s) are you trying to address?
2. What are the benefits of the potential project and solving the problem(s)?
3. Do you have the commitment from management and stakeholders for the project?
4. Does the project have an achievable scope?
5. Can you quantify the benefits through a valid return on investment (ROI)?
6. Can you achieve the required outputs and deliverables?
7. Do you have capable measurement systems?
8. Do you have the analytical skills to manage the data?
9. Do you know your key process inputs?

The Benefits of Six Sigma Deployment and Good Strategies
Deploying Six Sigma as a business strategy through Six Sigma tools usage and projects is an effective way to realize the benefits of Six Sigma deployment. Six Sigma projects offer better bottom-line results and they allow for better feedback and increased communication for process strategies and critical business processes.  To properly create the infrastructure all projects should be used to meet the company’s business strategy and use Six Sigma as a plan and map to effectively meet those goals.

Organizations fail at Six Sigma implementation because they are missing the proper infrastructure. The infrastructure can be a number of things employees, strategy, metrics, or technology. Companies should focus on deployment, execution, and results. Meaning, they should focus on the actual work of Six Sigma not just training employees. Many companies train and fail to deploy and execute. The leadership of your company is responsible to provide the structure, direction, vision, and organizational culture for Six Sigma success. Combining the vision in conjunction with the deployment and execution provides your company the competitive edge for the business economy of today. Businesses and companies have always had challenges. Six Sigma will help you meet the new challenges which evolve highly around technology improvements and new innovation.

Having looked at the Six Sigma infrastructure and implementation remember, now is the time. There is no better time than the present to implement Six Sigma and companies often find many reasons to prolong beginning improvement initiatives.  Leadership is key to influencing the change and mentoring the culture.  Company leaders have to be willing to do themselves what they’re asking employees to do. This involves direct engagement in their activities. The core competency to sustain Six Sigma improvement is seen through experience and growth over time.
 
This chart shows the key strategies, deployment components, execution principles and the Six Sigma results of their implementation.

Training and Certification  

Six Sigma certifications are one of the more highly sought certifications of professionals today due to its applicability to most any business or industry. Companies realize the value in applying the Six Sigma methodology to business practices, to save money, improve quality, increase efficiency or enhance performance. Probably the best word of advice is that certification alone does not summarize the value of a true quality professional.
 
The basic requirements for experience and/or education requirements prior to certification at the Black belt level include:
 

• Three years of work experience in one or more areas of the Six Sigma Body of Knowledge
• 2 completed Six Sigma projects documented by signed affidavits, and a four-hour, 150 multiple- choice question examination
• Some additional requirements such as whitepaper composition, simulation participation, or threaded conversation training.

 
Green Belts typically differ only requiring one project.
 
The expectations for a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt are that they demonstrate knowledge of Six Sigma tools and processes, are involved in quality improvement projects, and analyze and solve quality problems at an advanced level from the green belt by using more complex Six Sigma tools and on multiple projects.
Organizational usage of Black Belts varies but in general they manage projects approximately $1 million in value. There is generally one Six Sigma Black Belt for every 100 company employees, and a black belt can manage 3 to 30 Six Sigma Green Belts although a realistic span of control would dictate a level of 15.

Black belt expectations include activities such as:
 

• Being able to explain Six Sigma philosophies and principles and understanding how systems interrelate.
• Application of quality improvement methodologies which complement Six Sigma such as lean.
• Understand team dynamics through a high level of leadership and project management skills.
• Strategically plan small improvements such as Rapid Process Improvement Workshops (RPIW), 5S which is a cleaning and organizational tool, or Kaizen which is a focused short-term improvement event.
• Perform hypothesis testing and analysis.
• Perform statistical and process capability calculations.
• Facilitate control plans and sustainment opportunities.
• Understand tactical design principles for organizational application including robust design, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and Design for Excellence (DFX).
• Implement statistical process control (SPC)
    

Certification is of great benefit to the individual and to the company. The reasons for seeking Six Sigma certification are the same for other certifications:
 

• Potential job promotion
• Potential salary increase
• Professional display of competency and proficiency

 
An added benefit is that Six Sigma certification is transferrable between companies and organizations.

Are certifications are still half price through Mid January Black Belt is $148.50 and Green Belt is $94.50

https://www.instituteforstrategicimprovement.com/store/c4/Certifications.html

We give you  the tools you need to improve at your job, your business, or your life. Training comes with a certificate for framing  with your new designation. Our instructors help you at every step and you'll have legitimate projects you can share with your current or prospective employers.