The elements in lean six sigma training

The principles of “lean manufacturing” are mostly used by the engineers, managers, supervisors, and individuals responsible for the implementation of lean six sigma methodologies with in an organization.

Lean six sigma is a methodology of business improvement, which is the combination of lean manufacturing and six sigma tools. The aim of lean six sigma is the production of products which yields the “better quality faster”.

An organization implement the use of lean six sigma in order to reduce the time of production with the high quality expected. This is possible through the combination of the lean manufacturing and the traditional six sigma methodology. While lean manufacturing pays attention towards the speed, the traditional six sigma focuses on the quality of the product. Both action results in the production of a “better quality faster”.

The implementation of lean six sigma acts as an inter process inspections, in order to find out and eliminate the defective units. Lean six sigma gives importance in finding out the cause of defective units rather than further processing. Here lean manufacturing is the systematical approach of identification and the elimination of waste through continuous improvement by the flow of products, which meets the demand of the customer.

The philosophy of lean manufacturing is derived from the “Toyota Production System”. Lean manufacturing is a generic process of management, for the production of goods through the removal of waste and implementing the flow. The operational strategy in lean manufacturing gives importance in the achievement of better production of goods that meet the customer’s satisfaction, through the process of shortest possible cycle time by eliminating waste and reducing incidental work. Lean manufacturing is a technique which helps in decreasing the time between the customer need and the shipment. It is designed in a way that there is a rapid improvement in the profit, gaining the customer satisfaction, reducing the production of time and sustaining the employee emotions. In general it is said that lean manufacturing is considered as a company’s “half human effort, the half manufacturing space, the half investment in tools and the half engineering hours for the development of a new product with in the half time scheduled”. It is clear that the benefits gained through the implementation of lean manufacturing is the lower costs, higher quality and shorter lead time for the production.

The participants are given training about the importance of lean six sigma manufacturing. Along with this they are trained how and when to implement the methodology of lean manufacturing with in an organization, for the profit and to meet the customer satisfaction. The training starts with the characteristics of lean processes and the approaches.

The characteristics of lean processes are:

-Single-piece production

-Repetitive order characteristics

-Just-in-time materials or pull scheduling

-Short cycle times

-Quick changeover

-Continuous flow work cells

-Collocated machines, equipment, tools and people

-Compressed space

Lean manufacturing approaches:

Lean manufacturing is used under two approaches. The first approach is used for the identification and the continuous elimination of the waste. It is clear that as the waste is being eliminated, the quality of the product improves, while the production time and cost is reduced. The second approach to lean manufacturing, is focusing on improving the “flow” of the work. By the word flow means, the smoothness of the work. in the second approach the focus is given in the smoothening of the work, through the system and not the waste reduction. The second approach was promoted by Toyota.

The difference between the two approaches lies not on the attainment of the goal, but achieving the goal at the first time itself. In the second approach, the smooth flow of the work helps in exposing the defects or the quality problems which is there in the work already. This exposing of the defects leads to  the reduction of the waste naturally.

once the lean processes and the approaches are cleared it is essential to make the participants know about the types of waste. this is because the aim of lean manufacturing is the elimination of wastes for the production of good quality products with reducing the time and costs.

Types of wastes:

The elimination of waste is the goal of lean manufacturing and Toyota defined that there are three types of waste like: “muda, muri and mura”.

MUDA: muda is process of activity that results wasteful or which does not add any value to the production of goods which meets the customer satisfaction. There are seven types of muda. They are as follows:

Overproduction: production of goods beyond the demand

Transportation: moving the products that is not required for the processing

Waiting: wasting the time waiting for the next production step

Inventory: all the necessary steps like components, work-in-progress and finished products not being processed

Motion: movement of the people or the equipments more than it is needed for the processing

Over Processing: the result of poor tool or product design creating activity

Defects: the efforts used in inspecting and fixing the defects.

MURI: The pushing of a person or a machine beyond its natural limits with in a work is referred as muri, which is another type of waste. All types of unreasonable works that the management is imposing towards the workers and the machines comes under this category. This is because of the poor management organization. Poor management organization such as making carry heavy weights, moving things around, dangerous tasks, even working faster than usual

MURA: This is the action which focus on the implementation and elimination of fluctuation at the scheduling or the operational levels. This includes the levels of quality and volume.

The above said are the basis of lean trainings. The training centre also pays attention to the topics like:

Overview of lean

Value stream mapping

Flow

Pull

Cellular manufacturing

5S

Quick changeover

Eight wastes

Standard work

Kaizen

Visual management

Total productive maintenance

Overall equipment effectiveness

What is Six Sigma Certification?

From the word certification, it is clear that Certification usually refers to the qualification or the ability of a person in a specified field or a job. Same as six sigma certification is a designation owned by a person to ensure that he/ she is capable and qualified for the performance of the job. Under six sigma certification, it indicates the confirmation of a person’s ability in performing specific competencies. Six sigma certification differs from other type of certifications in the sense, that other types of quality certifications ensure a person’s capability in the performance of unlimited process improvement. But in the case of six sigma certification it ensures an individual’s capability with respect to specified competencies

Six sigma certification give importance in giving training to the appropriate subject matter, through written proficiency test. This training provides with the displaying competency in the hands of the person. Six Sigma Certification is given by the training and consulting company, who is conducting the training. The tests can be given even by the companies hiring the training programs. The tests may differ according to the training company’s proficiency. Companies performing training for years have created and administrated written proficiency tests of their own.

Once the certification training is completed, one must complete one or two quality projects. This is the time for the trainees to display the competency in applying the concepts learned. This part of the training differs according to the companies, and hence the quality projects are the fuzziest and the undefined part of the six sigma certification.

Under six sigma certification comes three types of certifications. They are:

Green belt certification

Black belt certification

Master black belt certification

Apart from this certification there are yellow certification and lean certification. The word belt refers to the level six sigma projects to be performed. Business leaders processing six sigma through the projects are known as the champions. They are trained according to the six sigma methodology which aims at the selection of the projects that are related with business goals. These champions are to select and monitor six sigma project leaders, who are called the “belts”. Six sigma certification requires both projects and training

CSSGB- Six Sigma Green Belt Certification

Here the six sigma green belt operators are given training to operate in the support or under the supervision of a six sigma black belt. Through this certification the person is trained to analyze and solve quality problems. This results in the quality improvement projects. The person, who had undergone the six sigma green belt certification, has at least three years of work experience in demonstrating the knowledge of six sigma tools and processes.

CSSBB- Six Sigma Black Belt Certification

The candidate who had undergone six sigma black belt certification is a professional who is capable in the explanation of six sigma philosophies and the principles. His knowledge also includes the supporting systems and the tools. This certification also deals with the training of the candidate in developing the demonstrating of the team leadership, understanding team dynamics and assigning team member roles and responsibilities. A six sigma black belt will be well versed will all the aspects of the DMAIC model in accordance with the six sigma principles. These professionals have basic knowledge of lean enterprise concepts. They are capable in identifying non-value added elements and activities. They are also capable in the use of specific tools

Master Black Belt Certification

The professionals who had undergone the master black belt certification are considered as a six sigma quality experts and they are responsible for the strategic implementations within an organization. The training is given for the improvement of the responsibilities of a master black belt, which includes training and mentoring of black belts and the green belts. Moreover the responsibilities or the duties of a master black belt extend to the range of helping the both belts in prioritizing, selecting and charting high impact projects.

Maintaining the integrity of the six sigma measurements, improvements and developing, revising six sigma training materials, qualifying or teaching the other six sigma facilitators about the methodologies, tools and applications in all functional areas of a company are some of the other responsibilities of a person who has completed master black belt certification.

Yellow Belt Certification

Six Sigma Yellow Belt certification provides with the attendees an overall insight to the use age of the six sigma techniques. The training is also given in the field of six sigma metrics and the basic improvement methodologies. It is essential for six sigma yellow belt to learn how to integrate lean and six sigma methodologies to get the high level production and transactional systems. This is to meet the customer’s expectations and the objectives of the organization from the bottom, to its best. The certification helps the trainees to receive an idea about the introduction to the process management and the basic tools of six sigma. Strong understanding of the processes, enabling each individual to provide meaningful assistance is the other characteristics of the six sigma yellow belt certification. The aim of this certification is the achievement of the organizations overall objectives.

Lean Six Sigma Certification

Lean six sigma certification provides the professionals with both techniques of service and manufacturing in industries. Along with this lean certification makes an individual attain the following requirements:

– Focusing how to move fast in order to accomplish the objectives with in the industry.

– Involves in business enterprise, identifies and eliminates the activities which do not provide values to the product or to the service given to the customer.

– Awareness of the lean and six sigma methodology help the business enterprise in attaining a stable improvement.

– The improvement will start from the bottom level and will be having a fast accomplishment

– Identifying the potential areas, deciding the improvements, meeting the customer expectation and the business results are other fields in which the trainees concentrate.

– Emphasis is given in chasing the variations and waste out of the system, so as to make sure that the improvements are sustained.

What are the benefits of implementing six sigma in your company?

1) Financial benefits:

“The quality performance” is the foundation stone of all types of industries. The growth of an industry depends on its performance quality. So checking out of the performance quality of an industry is something which is inevitable. “SIX SIGMA” – The statistical representation, is a process of quality measurement, which helps the organization in the improvement of their quality.

Six Sigma is a systematical process of “quality improvement through the disciplined data-analyzing approach, and by improving the organizational process by eliminating the defects or the obstacles which prevents the organizations to reach the perfection”.

Six sigma points out the total number of the defects that has come across in an organizational performance. Any type of defects, apart from the customer specification, is considered as the defect, according to Six Sigma. With the help of the statistical representation of the Six Sigma, it is easy to find out how a process is performing on quantitatively aspects. A Defect according to Six Sigma is nonconformity of the product or the service of an organization.

Since the fundamental aim of the Six Sigma is the application of the improvement on the specified process, through a measurement-based strategy, Six Sigma is considered as a registered service mark or the trade mark. Six Sigma has its own rules and methodologies to be applied. In order to achieve this service mark, the process should not produce defects more than 3.4. These numbers of defects are considered as “the rate of the defects in a process should not exceed beyond the rate 3.4 per million opportunities”. Through the Six Sigma calculation the number of defects can be calculated. For this there is a sigma calculator, which helps in the calculation.

Once the qualities of the products are increased, the customer satisfaction is also increased. This lead to the development of an organization through profit gaining. This makes clear that six sigma training can be implemented in an organization for the purpose of cost and saving, that is for the financial benefits of an organization it is important to implement the knowledge and training of six sigma.

2) Quality improvement of the product:

Sine the aim of six sigma is the production of defect free products, through the systematical analysis, the implantation of six sigma in an organization is very much important for the increasing profit and for the better customer satisfaction. Trainings are given to know more about the needs of the customers.

3) Identification of employee skills:

Implementation of six sigma helps the authorities in finding out the skills and knowledge of their employees. At the time working out of a project, the implementation of six sigma helps in finding out the responsibilities assigned to each person involved in the project. This is possible because six sigma gives training for the specific skills that is needed for the work, which is different from other types of training. In other types of training, attention is paid in developing more skills at a time. The tasks are divided into different levels according to the responsibilities.

In every company there are business leaders who lead the six sigma methodology at the time of sponsoring projects. These business leaders are known as the “Champions”. It is their responsibility to select the projects and then to find out the goals obtained out of the project. For the attainment of these goals, the champions select and mentor six sigma project leaders, who is know as the “Belt”.

According to six sigma the word belt refers to the level or the position, of a person in an organization at the time of performing a work or at the time of implementation of a project. Several responsibilities take part at the time of the implementation of a work, so as to meet and make sure that the project is launched with zero defects and is able to meet the customer satisfaction. Hence results in sustaining the quality and profit of the company or the organization.

There are 3 major levels of belts. Along with the training, these participants are also provided with certifications also. The six sigma certification differs from other types of certification. As in the other type of certifications, six sigma certification do not qualify a persons different capability, instead it gives importance to the specific ability which is needed for the defect free production of the company. The 3 major levels of belts and its certifications are:

“Six Sigma Belts”

Green belt certification

Black belt certification

Master black belt certification

Apart from the above certification there are yellow belt certification and lean belt certification. The implementation of six sigma methodology will also help in less time consuming, since the works are divided into several levels.

A Brief Summary About SIX SIGMA:

The overview about the Six Sigma, deals with the brief explanation about what Six Sigma is? The history of Six Sigma, the six sigma methodology, the use of six sigma, different six sigma belts, points of attention and the total conclusion about six sigma.

With in an organization, the role of six sigma is the continuous improvement of the business. Six sigma is “the business philosophy and a tool box” of an organized process. Since every thing we do for the improvement of an organization can be considered as a process, the main characteristic of the process should posses “an average performance level with little variation”. This is to make sure that the result of the process is at the expected value. The expected values and the statistical measurement of the variation of a process are obtained through the application of different types of six sigma methodology. In order to attain the six sigma the accuracy of the process should be equal to 99.9997%. The six sigma methodology aims at the quality and management improvement and problem resolution.

The use of six sigma dates back from the mid- 1980’s. The methodology of the six sigma was developed by the Motorola, an American multinational telecommunication company. The personalities of Motorola recognized the fact that the products which have high quality, rarely failed in use. This recognization results in the development of the six sigma methodology.

Since six sigma was a defined process of problem solving and was able to prove as a methodology to solve problems, the use of six sigma was adopted by the Motorola. More over, the results obtained was consistency, encourages the support from the top of the organization are the other factors which influenced the adoption the six sigma

The methodology of six sigma has two sub-divisions. They are DMAIC & DMADV. The former is used to improve an existing business process, while the second one is used either for creating a new product or for process designs for predictable and defect free performance. By DMAIC it means giving importance to defining, measuring, analyzing, improving and controlling a process to meet its better quality. The implementation of the six sigma methodology, helps in providing a logical sequence for existing concepts and the problem solving tools, by sufficient repackaging of the tools and concepts. Moreover the methodology of the six sigma is used by the project sponsors at each step of conclusion before moving to the next step.

In an organization, the project sponsor seeks the help of six sigma methodology under several situations like:

When the cause of the low quality performance is unknown

When problems are found in common places

When the problems found are not able to well defined

When the approaches made are not inappropriate

When all the problem solving methods fail

When complex situations arises with many variables

Six Sigma DMAIC and six sigma DMADV are executed by three six sigma belts or three levels. The three types of levels or belts are:

“Green belt”  used as a basic analytical tool at the time of less complex projects

“Black belt”   given importance on the application and analysis. Deals with the works projects which seeks the help from Green belt

“Master Black belt”  deals with the duties like understanding the application and statistical theory behind the application, paying attention in training the other belts, and finally leading the project reviewing.

The 3 types of belts are used on the basis of the level of competence in understanding and application of the improvement tools. Still the actual competencies of each belt varies by organization and the training institutions

Six sigma follows an orderly changes for the attainment of the best results. For this the top management must be patient at the time of decision making and there should be no place for quick fix. This helps in getting the right answer and not just any answer

As a conclusion, when applied correctly, six sigma will produce better results than most other methods through new culture. It is proven to be very marketable in all aspects.

Regression analysis is one of the statistical tools used for assessing the relationship between two variables. It is a method that quantifies the association between the two variables for example X & Y by placing in a line or on an plane in such a way that all the points lie in a line or evenly distributed on a plane.

Regression analysis is used to depict the relationship between a variable with one or more other variables. There are different types of Regression analysis that can be used namely :

Ø  Simple Regression

Ø  Polynomial Regression

Ø  Calibration Models

Ø  Multiple Regression

Ø  Nonlinear Regression

Ø  Partial Least Squares, etc.

Simple Regression : This model has only two variables namely X & Y complying with each other. This is the simplest form of Regression Analysis. This model is applicable with both Linear & Nonlinear Regression analysis that has one variable. Simple regression model also includes Least Squares method.

Polynomial Regression : It is an nonlinear equation which that can include any number of data or terms in an equation. It is also said that Polynomial equations are not strictly nonlinear equations. Sometimes it can also be a linear equation when one variable is held as a Constant & compared with other variable. Polynomial regression is used for interpolation & graphing purposes.

Calibration Model : This is a model that includes two variables where large numbers of known values are measured & then a equation is drawn relating to the values. This equation is later used to know the unknown values by inversing the predicted value after the samples are measured.

Multiple Regression : This model defines one variable as a function to multiple number of variables. It is usually used to include data to a linear equation with two or more variables. In a nonlinear multiple regression, it is more complicated equation where variable Y is considered as a function of several X variables.

Nonlinear Regression : It is a type of analysis where a nonlinear combination of the variables depends on one or more independent variables. Least Square regression models are developed for the models that are linear in the coefficients but when it needs to be used in an Nonlinear models, numerical methods has to be used.

Partial Least Squares : Partial Least Squares commonly known as PLS is designed to develop statistical models where multiple independent variables are related to multiple dependent variables. This method is useful when there are many values to be predicted. PLS is largely used by Chemical Engineers & Chemometricians.