About Six Sigma Black Belt
The Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) is a professional who can explain Six Sigma philosophies and principles, including supporting systems and tools. A Black Belt should demonstrate team leadership, understand team dynamics, and assign team member roles and responsibilities.
Black Belts have a thorough understanding of all aspects of the DMAIC model in accordance with the Six Sigma principles. They have basic knowledge of lean enterprise concepts, are able to identify non-value-added elements and activities, and are able to use specific tools.
Key Characteristics of a Six Sigma Black Belt
Black Belts should possess a mastery of process improvement and statistical analysis techniques. They should have strong people skills and act as effective leaders and mentors for project team members. Black Belts are also able to teach Six Sigma principles to project teams and leadership when needed. Consistency is key when it comes to the Black Belt role as holders must use their time wisely, and be good decision makers to ensure their project teams stay on task and meet deadlines while providing better quality to the management.
Roles & Responsibilities for a Six Sigma Black Belt
Total Quality Management:
TQM i.e Total Quality Management is a process of embedding quality awareness at every step of production or service while targeting the end customer. It is a management strategy to embed awareness of quality in all organizational processes. By pursuing the process of continuous improvement and never-ending improvement the companies can outdistance their competitors by enticing the customers with high quality products at a low price. TQM has culminated in Six Sigma, Which targets 99.99927% defect free manufacturing.
Within the last two decades, Total Quality Management (TQM) has evolved as a strategic approach in most of the manufacturing and service organizations to respond to the challenges posed by the competitive business world. Today TQM has become an important responsibility to a comprehensive management strategy that is built on the foundation of continuous improvement & organization-wide involvement, with a core focus on quality.
Six Sigma improvement drives the most effective roles in the field of quality engineering and management spectrum. It enables organizations to make substantial improvements in their bottom line by designing and monitoring everyday business activities in ways that minimize all types of wastes and NVA activities and maximize customer satisfaction. While all the quality improvement drives are useful in their own ways, they often fail to make breakthrough improvements in the bottom line and quality.
Voelkel, J.G. contents that Six Sigma blends correct management, financial and methodological elements to make improvement in process and products in ways that surpass other approaches. Mostly led by practitioners, Six Sigma has acquired a strong perspective stance with practices often being advocated as universally applicable. Six Sigma has a major impact on the quality management approach, while still based on the fundamental methods & tools of traditional quality management (Goh & Xie, 2004). A strategic initiative to boost profitability, increase market share, and improve customer satisfaction through statistical tools that can lead to breakthrough quantum gains in quality.
Mike Harry (2000). Park (1999) believes that Six Sigma is a new paradigm of management innovation for a company’s survival in the 21st century, which implies three things:
1.Statistical Measurement
2.Management Strategy
3.Quality Culture
Six Sigma Black Belt Training Course
Six Sigma Black Belt is the training for a business improvement strategy used to improve profitability, to drive out waste, to reduce quality costs & improve the effectiveness and efficiency of all operational processes that meet or exceed customers’ needs & expectations (Antony & Banuelas, 2001).
Six Sigma Black Belt Certification
Six Sigma Black Belt Certification is also defined as a program aimed at the near-elimination of defects from every product, process, and transaction, Tomkins (1997). A business improvement approach that seeks to find and eliminate causes of mistakes or defects in business processes by focusing on process outputs that are of critical importance to customers (Since 2004).
Six Sigma Black Belt Methodologies and Six Sigma Black Belt Tools
The DMAIC Six Sigma Technology-
The DMAIC methodology follows the phases: define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. Although PDCA could be used for process improvement, to give a new thrust; Six Sigma was introduced with a modified model i.e. DMAIC. The phase determines the objectives & the scope of the project collects information on the process and the customers and specifies the deliverables to customers (internal & external).
The Acronym is further defined below:
Define
- Will be able to select data collection methods and collect voice of the customer data and use customer feedback to determine customer requirements.
- Will understand the elements of a project charter (problem statement, scope, goals, etc.) and be able to use various tools to track the project progress.
Measure
- Will be able to define and use process flow metrics and analysis tools to indicate the performance of a process.
- Will be able to develop and implement data collection plans and use techniques in sampling, data capture, and processing tools.
- Will be able to define and describe measurement system analysis tools.
- Will apply basic probability concepts and understand various distributions.
- Will be able to calculate statistical and process capability indices.
Analyze
- Will be able to analyze the results of correlation and regression analyses.
- Will be able to define multivariate tools.
- Will be able to perform hypothesis tests for means, variances, and proportions, and analyze their results.
- Will understand the components and concepts for ANOVA, chi-square, contingency tables, and nonparametric tests.
- Will understand the elements and purpose of FMEA and use root cause analysis tools. • Will be able to identify and interpret the seven classic wastes.
- Will be able to use gap analysis tools.
Improve
- Will be able to define and apply the design of experiments (DOE) principles and distinguish among the various types of experiments.
- Will be able to apply various lean tools and techniques to eliminate waste and reduce cycle time.
- Will understand how to implement an improved process and how to analyze and interpret risk studies.
Control
- Will be able to apply, use, and analyze the various statistical process control (SPC) techniques.
- Will understand total productive maintenance (TPM) and visual factory concepts.
- Will be able to develop control plans and use various tools to maintain and sustain improvements. Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) Framework and Methodologies
- Will understand common DFSS and DFX methodologies, and elements of robust designs.
Benefits of Six Sigma Black Belt Certification
Over the course of Six Sigma Black Belt professionals here are some of the benefits and tools that will now be explained minimal expectations that would need to be looked after and covered under management :
Organization-wide Planning and Deployment
- Will understand how to deploy Six Sigma within a project.
- Will be able to implement tools and techniques to deploy strategic directions for initiatives.
- Will understand the roles and responsibilities for Six Sigma projects and how each group influences project deployment and will be able to support communications about the project deployment.
- Will be able to apply operational change management techniques within their defined scope or domain.
Organizational Process Management and Measures
- Will be able to define various types of benchmarking.
- Will be able to describe various types of performance measures, and select an appropriate financial measure for a given situation and calculate its result.
Team Management
- Will understand the components and techniques used in managing teams, including time management, planning and decision-making tools, team formation, motivational techniques and factors that demotivate a team, and performance evaluation and reward.
- Will be able to describe elements that can result in a team’s success.
- Will be able to use appropriate techniques to overcome various group dynamics challenges.