Six Sigma Green Belt Certification For Production Manager

What is six sigma and Green Belt?

Six sigma is a quality control methodology that includes a set of tools and best practices to maintain and control the quality of a product. The beauty of six sigma is its ability to fit into a business model of any sizes and categories. It is basically a way to measure the defects in a product. Unlike the normal measuring methods, six sigma can identify defects per millions, not in thousands-thus it can significantly improve the quality of any product that a manufacture intend to produce. In order to achieve the higest score( 6) in six sigma your product needs to have only 3.4 defects per million opportunities-which is nearly 99.99966 % of defects.

Green belt is the title you can get for acquiring knowledge in six sigma methodology. To be recognized as a green belt you need to take a certification exam called CSSGB. This exam. is conducted twice in a year: June and December. The exam fees for non-member of ASQ is $339. Any ASQ member wants to take this exam. will have to pay only $199.

Who is using six sigma?

Motorola, Citibank, General electric and many more big brands are using six sigma in order to save billions of dollars by minimizing the quality related issues with their products and processes.

Evolution of Six Sigma

In 1818 the legendary German mathematician John Carl Gauss started working with normal distribution function, which is considered the root of six sigma. The term “six sigma” was coined by a Motorola engineer Bill Cohen. Then, in 1986, another Motorola scientist standardized this quality control method.

What is Green Belt?

The experts of six sigma philosophy are known as Black Belts or masters black belts. They provide guidance to an organization so as their projects maintain the six sigma standards. So, the main task of black belts is to maintain the conformity of the quality standards set by the project sponsors and executives. On the other hand, a project team is responsible to perform the tasks needed to complete a project. In order to make sure that a project team sticks to the six sigma standards interpreted by the black belts, a different group of six sigma experts are needed -who only make sure that the six sigma principles are being exercised in the implementation phase of a project- known as six sigma green belt.

What is special about six sigma?

• It is a comprehensive quality control tool because it takes into account of all the best practices of the quality control techniques. This technique can directly translate any business goal into the customer expectations and it is applicable to a business of any magnitude.
• Integration of project management technique into this quality control technique is a way of looking at the quality management of a product which is very similar to a full-fledge project.
• During the initial stage of a six sigma project a detailed process map is created in order to identify the critical processes and their relationships. At the end of the process mapping you can take a holistic look at your project and can easily identify the main obstacles in achieving your project objectives.
• Quantitative approach to define cost and benefit is a major strength of this technique. Since both cost and quality need to be controlled rigorously throughout a project life cycle, six sigma’s ability to quantitatively define both cost and benefit help the project sponsors to select the best project for their business.
• Emphasizing the organization-wide commitment is also another great aspect of this quality control technique. By giving importance to everyone in an organization to assure the quality of a product generates a sense of ownership;six sigma ensure that the output of the project or the quality of a product get attention from all possible organizational level -thus the project deliverables are controlled qualitatively at every level of production.

Defining both six sigma and green belt with this small article is not practically possible. I have a simple answer to the question “what is sigma” and that is it is all about defining a quality goal, and then measuring and analyzing it, in order to control the improvement of the quality of a product. And the Green Belt certification is the recognition of your knowledge in Six Sigma and also an indication that you can work as a liaison between the project team and the back belt consultants to ensure that you project adheres to the six sigma guidelines to maintain the quality of the project deliverables.