Should Fresh MBA's/Engineers opt for Green Belt Training?

In the last one year, more than 500 freshers have gone through Benchmark Six Sigma Green Belt program. A fresher shall have a better career path after

training for two reasons.

1. Many of the leading organizations prefer Six Sigma competence.

2. Irrespective of point 1 above, the individual's ability to generate results

increases many fold if he knows Six Sigma methodology. This means even if the organization is not utilizing Six Sigma, the person is likely to generate better results leading to better career path. There are a good number of senior people who (after participating in training) provide the feedback " I could have benefited a lot if I had gone through this program right at the beginning of their career."

The few important advantages for students when they attend Benchmark Six Sigma Green Belt training are - 

1.     Recognition of certificate (the certification is well accepted and respected in industry

2.     Industry interface (students learn best when they attend along with working professionals)

3.     Life-long membership of an active Six Sigma network having thousands of past participants (students should be able to get their doubts clarified when they face real life problems while implementing)

4.     Attractive pricing (students get special discounts)

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 Source: http://www.benchmarksixsigmaforum.com

Who can benefit by Green Belt training?

A very common question is How will Six Sigma help me

in my job/profile? OR Will it be useful in such and such profile?

The answer is -" If you consider yourself as an improvement oriented
person, Six Sigma is for you. Interestingly, this holds true irrespective of
your job profile"

Let us try to understand this better.

Each job profile has its challenges (more commonly called

"problems"). Most of these problems or challenges can be addressed

if world best techniques are used. Techniques that are timeless,

universally applicable, logically sound, and conceptually very

powerful.

These techniques can solve small and big problems in a job profile,
can address improvements in a department, and have a potential of
turning around a company from brink of closure to epitome of success.

You can visualize that these techniques can not be the
outcome of special effort of an individual, or a department or an
organization, or even an era of global development. These
techniques are compiled from global wisdom across industries,
across centuries, across continents. When such classic approaches
come together in a single roadmap, no problem remains too big, no
challenge is insurmountable.

These improvement techniques are covered in three levels of courses

conducted by Benchmark Six Sigma - Green Belt, Black Belt and

Master Black Belt.

As in Karate, the belts relate to levels of mastery achieved in

understanding and application of Six Sigma.

Now coming back to the question -

How will Six Sigma help me in my job/profile?

Here are some questions to help you answer your question -

1. Do you face problems and challenges in you profile? If not, do
you wish to ensure that your way of doing things is "the best
practice"?

2. Do you have an opportunity of leading/ initiating/ recommending
changes that would deliver results, results that are more
consistent and better than ever before?

3. In your profile, do you think involving others in an improvement
journey shall require a structured approach?

4. Do you want to learn techniques that you can apply yourself in
the current profile to measure, analyze and improve processes?

5. Do you think you would like to be referred as a "positive change
agent" or an "improvement oriented person" or may be "an
improvement expert"?

If the answer to all the above is yes, you can surely benefit by

applying Six Sigma in your current profile.

To make it all simpler, there are two types of people who can not

benefit from Six Sigma -

1. Those who do not find any "problems" or "opportunities for improvement" and

2. Those who do not wish to take up the best available approaches to tackle them.

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             Source: http://www.benchmarksixsigmaforum.com

What is the difference between Green Belt & Black Belt?

Six Sigma has a hierarchical structure similar to Martial arts. There are white belts, green belts, black belts, and master black belts.

The white belts go through a very high level overview training about Six Sigma (typically 4 hours) so they understand some basic terminology about Six Sigma. All employees in the company are usually trained as white belts. White belts may help Green Belts or Black Belts with some data collection etc.

The next level is the Green Belts who go through the Six Sigma training at the next level of details. Green Belts may go through few days to up to two weeks worth of Six Sigma training. Green Belts are expected to work on projects within their own functional areas. Green Belts are usually not exposed to advanced Six Sigma concepts, so they are not equipped to solve really tough problems.

The third level is Black Belts who go through a more detailed version of the Six Sigma training. The typical duration of training varies from a week to four weeks worth of training. Black Belts are expected to work on more complex cross-functional projects that are strategically important for the company.

Finally, the last level is the Master Black Belts. The Master Black Belts are responsible for coaching and training Green Belts and Black Belts. They may also work on large company wide projects.

Sometimes people ask us if there is any minimum financial benefits that Green Belt and Black Belt projects need to deliver. There is no hard and fast rule about minimum savings that these projects need to deliver. The amount of benefits will also depend on the size of the company turnover, number of employees, opportunities for improvements etc. Some companies may have a target for Green Belt and Black Belt savings - but these are usually applied as an average across several projects rather than for individual projects.

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 Source: http://www.benchmarksixsigmaforum.com

 

Who is using Six Sigma ?

Six Sigma has been around for over a decade and as such it has been deployed at lots of companies around the world. More than 75% of the fortune 500 companies have deployed Six Sigma in one form or another. Some companies have chosen not to call it Six Sigma due to copyright or other issues. They have a similar approach but may call it by a different name (such as STRIVE, MEDIC, etc).

Some of the more famous companies who are using Six Sigma are:

• General Electric
• Motorola
• Caterpillar
• Microsoft
• Home Depot
• Philips
• Allied Signal
• Xerox
• Chevron
• Dell
• WIPRO

Also, some of the major players in India using Six Sigma are:

• Banking: Bank of America, American Express, HDFC, HSBC
• Call Centers: ICICI OneSource, Accenture, Satyam BPO, IBM Daksh
• Hospitality: ITC Hotels, GRT Hotels
• Hospitals: Apollo Hospitals
• Retail: Reliance Retail
• Telecom: Bharti Cellular, Vodafone, Siemens
• Software: Wipro, Satyam, Accenture, Infosys

Six Sigma can be applied in all industries/companies as work always takes place in processes and the following hold true for every company (in any industry). 

Everything that anyone does is a part of a process. A process is efficient or inefficient depending on the output to input ratio. (this ratio could be productivity measure, cost measure, time measure or any other useful metric)

Very few processes are defect free and most have unacceptable level of defects or delays (as per industry standards, company's own philosophy towards defects or based on customer expectations). Here, for many processes there is an internal customer (instead of or in addition to an external customer).
Meeting customer (internal, external or both) expectations with reasonable cost is a key success criterion.

Variation in process inputs or improper controls result in reduced efficiency or dissatisfied customers, which increases costs and breeds further inefficiency.

Six Sigma requires that you define success criteria for key processes, eliminate defects (or reduce their severity or occurrences), and measure outcomes for exceeding industry standards or creating new benchmarks, thereby leading to competitive advantage in terms of cost or value for customers. 

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 Source:- http://www.benchmarksixsigmaforum.com

Start with six sigma today !!!

Being a Fresher and a Quality enthusiast one often faces the question of  “How to start with Six Sigma?”. Out of the number of Six Sigma courses being offered it is very difficult to ascertain which on is the right one for you and with which course to start your training in Six Sigma with.

Six Sigma can be learnt even by a fresher (even without any Statistical academic background) without any work experience, whether graduate/ undergraduate. Six Sigma essentially implies a change in the attitude/mindset in the way of looking at things for the better from what it was earlier/till now. It is moving to the next (superior) level from the present level.

To start your journey in the Six Sigma domain, Green Belt (junior & middle level at work) training should be just apt for acquiring the required statistical & analytical knowledge needed for starters in the Six Sigma work area. Subsequently, on a GB project completion (under the guidance of a BB), you become more evolved as a Six Sigma professional & become ready for a Black Belt in Six Sigma.

Benchmark Six Sigma’s four-day Green Belt certification program provides an understanding of each step in the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) methodology and many of the associated analysis tools. This program combines lecture, class exercises, case studies, and team exercises.

BSS’s program assumes no prior knowledge of similar techniques. So people from operations, finance, quality, sales, marketing, R&D, customer service, admin, training, HR, design, logistics, purchase, materials, maintenance, development, housekeeping, planning, strategy, have benefited in the past.

Our programs have unparalleled advantages. These include international recognition, world class trainers, advanced content, training techniques that bring concepts to life, project certification, opportunities for next level courses-BB and MBB, membership of an active and supportive online community.

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  Source:- http://www.benchmarksixsigmaforum.com