I could get it through work but I am not sure I buy into all this. Do employers actually look for this? Will I see a salary bump if I am willing to move.
Thanks
Matt
lean and six sigma are two different things, fyi. but it really depends upon your current position, experience level, industry, etc. from what i have seen, both have lost a bit of the mega hype of jack welch’s days, but if you’re in manufacturing, lean is pretty important, and six sigma is still used, but i believe that most companies have gone away from the “all of our people need to be green belts and all of our managers need to be black belts”.
i see from your profile that you’re a chemist, if your in pharm, it may be beneficial. depending upon your education level, it could be pretty easy, for instance, in general, the toughest part is the stats, but if youre a PhD, it will just be a review… Yes, some employers look for it, but at a black belt level, they will usually want you to lead six sigma projects. I have seen a desire for six sigma experience in other positions, but not at a required black belt level.
ultimately, continuous improvement (the latest buzz terminology) experience will always help you, because it is universally applicable. but it will likely be an 18-24 month commitment, and you might be better served doing something else…
Boeing uses lean principles and is totally into it. so does Toyota
Bell Helicopter just send six sigma to the corporate scrap heap.
Not that these are really answers, but the aerospace industry seems to be abandoning 6sigma.
lean and six sigma are two different things, fyi.
Well, not at my company. Our new system is called “lean six sigma”. Six Sigma was the big push for a number of years. In the last year, now that Lean is the recent fad, we’ve come up with some sort of amalgimation between the two called Lean Six Sigma.
In another few years it will be something different…
It looks good on your resume and could help you get the job, but I don’t think it will give you anykind of salary bump because you have your Black Belt.
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I think that’s why most companies just use the moniker “continuous improvement”. Six Sigma and Lean are two different things, developed by different people in different eras. Although, one may use Lean techniques as part of a six sigma process (i.e. in the improve phase), just like one can use Poke-Yoke, etc. they are different.
I think that the big reason that Lean is the new fad (it was the fad before Six Sigma stole all of the attention), is that it is much easier to teach, understand, and implement (at least at a rudimentary level). Six Sigma is more useful when the company is already highly evolved and looking to get that “last little bit”. Too many companies implemented Six Sigma, and had no process or data collection methods, so projects were based upon assumptions, and there was no way to measure the results…which makes it tough to justify…
I thought I was going to read a martial arts thread.
Run away - quickly.
I just left a company where I suffered through 4 years of Lean-Sigma. Total crap.
These are the warning signs:
Your president and his recently chosen Lean Minions have copies of every business self-help book ever written lined up behind there desk in the most eye-catching way possible.
You attend long training sessions by consultants who wave their hands hypnotically when they talk.
Meetings start to involve complicated charts and graphs - the more complicated the better, when the print is too small to read - it’s done.
Your president will use words and terms you never heard of during company meetings - you may have a company ‘Hedgehog’.
In the final degradation - there will be Kaizan events. The outcome of these events are always determined beforehand. They operate by the simple brute-force method of making all the participants work 12-18 days for a week. At the end of the week, victory is declared. Then the wrong thinking and half-baked plans that were employed to achieve the Kaizan outcomes wreak havoc in the organization until they are abandoned.
In short - Lean Sigma is a methodology employed by ineffective leaders who have no idea what else to do.
Your company will fly into the dirt.
Don’t you just love it when paper-pushing bureacrats use terms like Black Belt and quote from “The Art of War”? I’m referring to the inventors of this stuff and not ST posters.
Do you work for GE? GE had a “six sigma freeze” when Immelt took over. The Black Belts were a little worried. A bit before I resigned they were selectively implementing Lean Six Sigma too.
I would say that it probably would give you a salary bump if you go to a place where a BB is a dedicated position. You may be able to use it as leverage for more $ if you know it, can implement it, know that the place where you’d start working has some opportunities for implementing it, and that the new employer gets the “hmm-that’s-interesting…what-if’s” when you mention it.
“ultimately, continuous improvement (the latest buzz terminology) experience…”
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I have to laugh at this as this was the buzz word terminology back in the '80s when we were pursuing ISO 9000 certifications following Demming principles.
Six sigma = more paperwork + less people
I think the whole six sigma thing is simply an attempt to codify common sense, but it went horribly wrong. It gives people with no real purpose lots of buzzwords to throw out and busywork to assign. I worked for a big retailer for awhile, and they were knuckle-deep in this shit. I’d rather work as a migdet in a biker bar than for a company that’s bought into that stuff.
yeah, whats old is new. ~5yrs ago when I was looking for a job it was all Six Sigma, now its more CI and lean. Most of this stuff is 50yrs old, (I even see major components of Taylor still in use and being revived), but has been implemented by half-wit consultants. One of the latest “hot books” is the Fifth Discipline, which is just a lot of old theories in a new package, thats sold umpteen million copies…
I’ve actually had very good experiences with both of these methods, and others, but they are far from a magic pill…
I am one of those “consultants” that are mentioned elsewhere in this thread. I have a background in operations, predominantly in manufacturing and capital equipment, my post grad work was all on manufacturing management and I my doctorate is on one particular dimension of what is being referred to as “Lean”.
I completed my Six Sigma Black Belt in 06.
I now spend 100% of my time working with healthcare organizations on service improvement.
In the 2 years since I completed my BB I have used nothing covered in the syllabus.
I use various service improvement tools 100% of the time, I use some SPC but that which I use I knew about long before the existence of Six Sigma. My uncle is a statistician and senior university lecturer and Six Sigma really winds him up as he says “they used to call it SPC” now that is not quite true but his point is that it was nothing new and Lean Six Sigma is even worse.
I think that there are some interesting and potential useful tools within six sigma but they are lost in the branding and the reception that it generates when the new CEO announces that “six sigma will save their business”.
I think that a BB might be worth pursuing if it was to result in an increase in salary or you wanted to antagonize your colleagues :), other than that there is no reason that I’d choose to do it even if my company were paying for it.
After reading all of these posts, I now have a headache. I have absolutely no clue what you guys are talking about. At first I thought it was about some corporate secret agent espionage training program.
Don’t you just love it when paper-pushing bureacrats use terms like Black Belt and quote from “The Art of War”? I’m referring to the inventors of this stuff and not ST posters.
Hey, don’t forget Musashi’s Five Rings. Back when I was into weapons I was looking for the ancient sword fighting book. I was surprised that they kept it in the business section.
It is LITERALY about techniques used to kill someone with an actual sword.
Where I work, we lump it all together into our own “black belt” program. Shainin, DFMEA, Taguchi, 6 Sigma, Lean, QFD, etc. all are part of the curriculum. Getting a black belt is a ticket to ride. Getting to a “master black belt” qualifies you to become a “Technical Fellow” which basically means your are senior management with none of the responsibilities but all of the compensation. Coming in with a blackbelt from somewhere else is especially lucrative, because we seem to think we are way behind in black belt “technology.”
Not sure if it is the same everywhere, but unfortunately most of the people who become blackbelts or higher at my company have no clue about what is really going on. They are either academic types who thrive on the classes/seminars/symposiums or the black belt program was a good way for a manager to get rid of a low performing worker. There are a few exceptions, but I wouldn’t hesitate to broom the vast majority of them and replace them with entry level engineers who could actually do work.
So it depends on where you work (or want to work), and what your aspirations are.
After reading all of these posts, I now have a headache. I have absolutely no clue what you guys are talking about. At first I thought it was about some corporate secret agent espionage training program.
Think a soft, doughy guy like Dilbert wearing his necktie as a headband. Now picture him pulling a hamstring as he attempts some sort of “ready position”.
dang, i read this and thank God i work for myself.
It depends if the company you work for has drunk the kool-aid. I have a lot of customers are Fortune 500 companies. And I will tell you my personal opinion is anytime I go into a meeting and some guy introduces himself as “My name is Joe Schmoe and I am a 6 degree Blackbelt in Six Sigma”, that is my why of knowing the guy is a complete tool and not worth his weight in shit. I have read a few books on the subject, and there are some pretty good concepts, but I can honestly say I have had probably 100 people introduce themselves to me as a black belt in Six Sigma and they were all worthless.
That’s so sad…