Anyone know what a Six Sigma Green Belt Certification is?

[helosailor]

Six Sigma originated in manufacturing alongside Goldratt's Theory of Constraints. I've got not doubt that it probably works well enough in a manufacturing environment, but I've never understood how it was supposed to translate to a sales/HR-intensive/non-manufacturing process.

The way I see it, it can work in a select few environments, and the pitch men have sold the shit out of it to firms and management that don't really have a use for it.

I worked a place that implemented it and it was full-on clusterfuck from the word go. Our parent company (Sikorsky, a manufacturer) wanted us to get on board with it. We were a repair facility and it did not work at all for us. The nature of the work was far too fluid for it.

Nope, it's not just boa. Several large aircraft manufacturers bought into that bs as well. It is good if ur the green-black belt, but otherwise it sux.

It must look great on a resume, and might help you in your job to know about it, but just like many above have said - you don't want to be on the receiving end of it. Also, it only has a chance or being good in manufacturing if the numbers used are validated, which is not usually the case.

i.e. Sikorsky, as mentioned above.

It's a way for middle managers with a statistics calculator to feel the validation they so deeply desire. I worked with a couple of gents at GE that were working to implement a newly designed 6-lil-sigma system with vendor management/automated purchasing. The layout was very straight forward, but the amount of reports and time spent generating reports to satisfy the standard deviation that GE deemed was required for the operation to be a success was far greater than the payout.

Bingo! Most of ours went from playing pocket pool in their offices for most of the day to coming out to the floor and harassing the living shit out of us about how much time we logged sorting or straightening or some other inane bullshit.

[KungFuHamster]

Even the Navy and Marine are startin to buy into the Lean Six Sigma shit.

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i got my Green Belt Certification from the Navy in 2008 right before moving here.

and the thing i noticed the most about it was, yes, there are a lot ideas that are thrown around and most of it never comes to fruition. but its generally the lack of buy-in from the employees that causes the shit not to work. "oh this shit is stupid." "this is dumb". is usually the reaction. then when middle management has the same attitude guess what happens? nothing and the result is a clusterfuck of shit.

btw, motorola came up with six sigma in an effort to reduce defects (less steps in a process reduces your chances of fucking it up)
lean was created by Toyota (doing tasks more efficiently)
and TOC was, as stated earlier, created by Avraham Goldratt.

with all that said, i agree that its usefulness is limited in certain environments, but in a manufacturing world i think it can work very well. you can see its results today...Ford has implemented many ideas from toyota. toyota took their eye off the ball and we all saw what happened...their quality took the hit.

[YALE]

We have it, and now no one can tell you what the process engineering/ops guys actually do. They're always recalibrating shit, abd it still doesn't run right. I'm a bigger fan of the Process Improvement Tactics team method. You bring all your operators in and have them put all their tricks on the table for keeping the machine running, try them out, document them, and keep the best practices. You don't even need an engineer from home office for that.

[KungFuHamster]

I'm a bigger fan of the Process Improvement Tactics team method. You bring all your operators in and have them put all their tricks on the table for keeping the machine running, try them out, document them, and keep the best practices. You don't even need an engineer from home office for that.

Ultimately thats the way its supposed to work. but i think over the years the systems been dicked over by LSS BB's who are looking for job security. once things are fixed and "running smooth" theyre out the door. so they have to make themselves useful.

[YALE]

Ultimately thats the way its supposed to work. but i think over the years the systems been dicked over by LSS BB's who are looking for job security. once things are fixed and "running smooth" theyre out the door. so they have to make themselves useful.

I always hear Joe Pesci from Casino when these guys start fucking with my processes: "If you had any heart, you'd be out stealing for a living."

[michelleCTSV]

When I worked in defense (Raytheon/L-3), they were all about Six Sigma. Thankfully I left before I had to get too deep into doing a project. What a waste of time!

[Slowhand]

i got my Green Belt Certification from the Navy in 2008 right before moving here.

and the thing i noticed the most about it was, yes, there are a lot ideas that are thrown around and most of it never comes to fruition. but its generally the lack of buy-in from the employees that causes the shit not to work. "oh this shit is stupid." "this is dumb". is usually the reaction. then when middle management has the same attitude guess what happens? nothing and the result is a clusterfuck of shit.

btw, motorola came up with six sigma in an effort to reduce defects (less steps in a process reduces your chances of fucking it up)
lean was created by Toyota (doing tasks more efficiently)
and TOC was, as stated earlier, created by Avraham Goldratt.

with all that said, i agree that its usefulness is limited in certain environments, but in a manufacturing world i think it can work very well. you can see its results today...Ford has implemented many ideas from toyota. toyota took their eye off the ball and we all saw what happened...their quality took the hit.

I think you kind of captured it there. JIT has clearly worked wonders for Toyota (most of the automakers have adopted some form of it) and TOC modeling has the potential to work really well in a manufacturing environment. The two constraints (hehe) are that everyone pretty much has to buy into it (easy for some, not so easy for others), as you stated, and it takes a heap more labor, manpower, and think-time to implement it than anyone ever discusses. I just don't see the usefulness outside of manufacturing.

We have it, and now no one can tell you what the process engineering/ops guys actually do. They're always recalibrating shit, abd it still doesn't run right. I'm a bigger fan of the Process Improvement Tactics team method. You bring all your operators in and have them put all their tricks on the table for keeping the machine running, try them out, document them, and keep the best practices. You don't even need an engineer from home office for that.

This should most definitely be the case for anyone outside of manufacturing considering TOC/Six-Sigma.

[KungFuHamster]

I think you kind of captured it there. JIT has clearly worked wonders for Toyota (most of the automakers have adopted some form of it) and TOC modeling has the potential to work really well in a manufacturing environment. The two constraints (hehe) are that everyone pretty much has to buy into it (easy for some, not so easy for others), as you stated, and it takes a heap more labor, manpower, and think-time to implement it than anyone ever discusses. I just don't see the usefulness outside of manufacturing.

This should most definitely be the case for anyone outside of manufacturing considering TOC/Six-Sigma.

agreed.

however there are fundamental issues that can be identified and improved upon and i think thats the purpose for bringing it into non-manufacturing areas. taking a process and breaking it down step by step and identifying where your waste is, what constrains you gives you the ability to focus on improving the process.

the biggest problem is this requires the dreaded...CHANGE.

we had people intentionally TRYING to sabotage us because they wanted to cling to their old ways. hell we had a civilian retire because he refused to accept the changes that we were trying to implement.

[YALE]

JIT works for the auto industry, but it's really tough on the food industry. A lot of downtime can accumulate from a little outage with our processes, and the auto industry doesn't have the cleaning requirements we do. That shit has to fall like dominoes, and JIT fucks us on it. It's better to have small surpluses and follow FIFO for us, than risk outages from JIT. Also, the cows never stop giving milk, so any dairy (what I do) operation is going to be 24hrs. a day.

[momo]

when i see the type of humans talking about it, the more i want to leave the business world.

[jefehbk]

Are you all talking about the G.I. Joe Sigma Six action figures??

[LANTIRN]

The USAF was getting into this when I finished my enlistment.

[mikec]

It is like being a Mason. You have to have the ring and know the secret hand shake.

mstng86 has it correct though, it is a management strategy

That whole shake thing is just make believe...

[HerBlownSnake]

I've worked for a couple of companies that implemented Six Sigma strategies. It's never been a good thing from my experiences so far.

X2

[KBScobravert]

That whole shake thing is just make believe...

come on, I know there is at least a secret ring knock