Train for success with a course in Six Sigma!
Six Sigma is a US-style workplace training system designed to maximize employee efficiency. This has many benefits for a business, mostly in the form of increased productivity and enhanced profits. Six sigma courses teach all about this interesting topic.
What is Six Sigma?
Designed around the idea that there should be no more than 3.4 errors per million opportunities, Six Sigma training is about maximizing employee potential. First introduced by Motorola n 1986, it was adopted as the standard approach to business by General Electric in 1995, who was then the world’s biggest corporation.
As the name suggests, there are six tiers of the system:
- Green Belts are the average workers who incorporate the Six Sigma processes into their everyday workflow and use it to improve everything they do.
- Black Belts, who report to their superiors, are supervisors who help guide the Green Belt employees in achieving their goals in an organised and methodical fashion.
- Master Black Belts are the immediate overseers. Their sole job is to implement Six Sigma in the workplace and have no other responsibilities apart from this.
- Champions are employees who extend Six Sigma philosophy across multiple departments and arms of the company, ensuring that all the Master Black Belts are united under a unified system of leadership.
- Executive Leadership is comprised of the very top tier of the company. This includes the CEO and the Board members. They oversee the entire process and are responsible for setting out the aims of each project for the Champions and Master Black Belts to implement.
There is a 5-tier analysis system that adherents need to follow. This is known as DMAIC.
- Define the system – so that each project is undertaken with everyone having a clear understand of the end goal, and what is needed to reach it.
- Measure the process and use data collection to create specific targets to keep the project in check at every stage of the process.
- Analysis of the collected data that will help workers to understand the relationship between their actions and the outcomes of these actions. If a defect is being investigated, this will help everyone involved to understand why it has occurred.
- Improving the process so that any previous errors cannot occur again in future.
- Control of future processes means that any possible deviations that occur from achieving the end goal cannot happen more than once. This leads to control systems and progress control that continuously monitor what is going on and are repeated until the final outcome has been reached.
The lessons that are learned with Six Sigma courses can be applied to businesses of any size. This system is used by several multinational corporations to increase workflow and deliver in a high-pressure environment. While qualification is often time-consuming, the eventual benefits are potentially enormous. It has saved over $1 Billion to date for General Electric since its implementation.
What can I do after I finish a Six Sigma course?
Employees who have completed Six Sigma courses can advance to the relevant level within their company. While it will not get a job for graduates on its strength alone, employers, particularly at large multinational corporations, view this training very favorably. Demonstration of a knowledge of Six Sigma processes shows that candidates can work as part of large, highly complex groups and improve the working environment for everyone
around them.
It is an excellent qualification for anyone who wishes to work as part of a major company. A qualification in Six Sigma is worth every minute that is spent achieving it, as in the world of big business, no advantage should be considered too slight.
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