six sigma

[Ellis]

Anyone familiar with it? I am wanting to learn more about it, I am interested in a position that requires knowledge of it.

 

[dak109]

Heard enough about it to know I dislike it. A lot.
It is basically a way to assign blame to everybody but yourself. Requires more documentation than ISO. Includes bits and pieces of lean manufacturing and just in time delivery.
It is supposed to be a management tool used to find cause of supply issues.

 

[Joe G]

Depends on how it's utilized and requires upper Mgmt to fully get behind it otherwise it is a LOT of work that won't be worth it if no one uses the data gathered to make the changes required.

I was at a big company that starts with "G" who was fanatical about it for years. We had Master Blackbelts, BB's, and almost everyone else had to at least be Greenbelt certified. Was a glorious day when they finally throttled back on the projects and only used it for manufacturing, supply chain etc processes vs. trying to figure out how many times was optimal for everyone to use the bathroom and how many ounces of coffee each person should have a day to maximize productivity. LOL

 

[smittygj]

Heard enough about it to know I dislike it. A lot.
It is basically a way to assign blame to everybody but yourself. Requires more documentation than ISO. Includes bits and pieces of lean manufacturing and just in time delivery. It is supposed to be a management tool used to find cause of supply issues.

I concur. I'm involved in Navy Supply and when I hear "Lean Six Sigma" I run and hide.......

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Sigma is a statistical term meaning standard deviation. It refers to the spread of the bell curve in a "normal distribution". The term six sigma has come to refer to a set of procedures and wonkery working toward getting the mean to six sigma from the specification limits. You get to do a lot of math, but it's all pretty automated. The hardest part is getting the unwashed heathen to stop sabotaging it.

 

[PapaScout]

A weird beast. The hardest part is not making subjectivity look like science. Abstracting yourself from what you think the problem is is incredibly difficult, and without someone who can really lead this kind of an effort it will be a waste of time to all involved.

 

[rhino]

The training and certifications are spendy!

 

[femurphy77]

Six sigma has gone by many other names in the past such as work simp, etc. The very basic level is yellow belt which can be accomplished in one day and probably won't carry ANY weight in a job interview. Green belt and black belt will start to get their interest but they're also very pricey to get on your own and do require quite a bit of work on your part. If this is required for the job you wish to apply for I'd say it aint gonna happen. It's not quick and easy or cheap.

 

[BugI02]

Is it just me or does six sigma sound a lot like Scientology? Just sayin'

 

[Leadeye]

Lots of money spent, very little achieved, my take on it after more that 40 years in manufacturing. Doesn't mean that an individual can't go far on that gravy train, industry is full of managers making decisions based on worthless spreadsheets.

Maybe that puts me in the unwashed heathen category.

 

[yeahbaby]

Some certifications are good some not so good. My company sent me for ITIL cert (information technology infrastructure library). Paid for my travel to Indy, room for two nights, food and the class. The instructor basically read from the dam manual for two and a half days. The class would start a discussion on a subject and he would stop us. Had to say on task and finish the book. IMO it was a waste of my time, and a waste of money.

 

[Speedybruin4]

Some certifications are good some not so good. My company sent me for ITIL cert (information technology infrastructure library). Paid for my travel to Indy, room for two nights, food and the class. The instructor basically read from the dam manual for two and a half days. The class would start a discussion on a subject and he would stop us. Had to say on task and finish the book. IMO it was a waste of my time, and a waste of money.

Agree, you can go cheap or expensive with six sigma classes. I've seen some online for $40 or $50, and the expensive ones can be up to $2K. It matters what you want to get out of it. If your just wanting a piece of paper, the $40 may be better for you, but I can guarantee you're not going to fool anybody with that if you have have to use it later.

 

[Speedybruin4]

The whole point of Six Sigma (a cute name thought up by a guy in the GE marketing department in the 80's, with roots going back even further) is to reduce variation in processes and shift the variation to an acceptable level in between the spec limits set by the customer and/or the business. I have my greenbelt and am currently finishing up my black belt project. I have seen it applied with great results and I have seen projects that crashed and burned using the methodology.

One helpful piece of software that I would recommend if you decide to go full-bore into this is Minitab. It has so many more analytical functions that excel just simply can't do. My work paid for my class and software, so I am not sure how much it costs. You may be able to get some kind of student discount if you are in school, I know IUPUI used to do something similar.

One thing that I have noticed is that sometimes people try to make a project more difficult and shoehorn it into a major six sigma project. Some problems/projects can be solved quickly with a quick kaizen or another similar form.

As others have said if upper management doesn't fully support it, it will fail.

I hope this helps!

 

[femurphy77]

When you see six sigma projects such as: "Purchased compartmentalized drawer organizer to keep pens and pencils separated", you kind of lose interest in the whole affair!

And yes that was a project that management put forth as a shining example of what Six Sigma can accomplish!

 

[Speedybruin4]

When you see six sigma projects such as: "Purchased compartmentalized drawer organizer to keep pens and pencils separated", you kind of lose interest in the whole affair!

And yes that was a project that management put forth as a shining example of what Six Sigma can accomplish!

At my previous company we did projects similar to that. At my current company we each selected projects based on our metrics like quality, safety, productivity, etc. One of these 2 companies is currently struggling, I'll let you guess on that one.

 

[rhino]

Ivy Tech Corporate College Online Six Sigma Green Belt

About $2K to go to green belt online through Ivy Tech. It's 80 contact hours over 10-14 weeks, depending on the schedule.

 

[bmbutch]

Sigma is a statistical term meaning standard deviation. It refers to the spread of the bell curve in a "normal distribution". The term six sigma has come to refer to a set of procedures and wonkery working toward getting the mean to six sigma from the specification limits. You get to do a lot of math, but it's all pretty automated. The hardest part is getting the unwashed heathen to stop sabotaging it.

Pretty much sums it up. I'll add it's a "term" Management / Upper Management loves to use, with Little / No Idea what it means or how it applies to process control.

However, if used correctly, it's very beneficial on determining if the process is repeatable to design specifications / tolerances.

 

[Hookeye]

Mostly political.
Bad engineers make it a career.
A few can use the tools and be of benefit.
Most I saw that had the time to take the classes...........well there's a reason why they had so much free time.

Worked many months with a cool guy, good engineer too. Ol' Raj found the problem (tough one too)...........proly took us 6 months of intense data collection.
Management and supplier did not believe us.......we had to do other stuff to prove their stuff wrong, so we could actually do other work to find the problem.

Guess what? It turned out to be what Raj said it was from the get go.

Vendor fixed his $$$$$ machine, which had intermittent issue. Was bad from the start.
Dunno what political leverage was had for all the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ scrap.

Ridiculous.

 

[Hookeye]

Funny, I never got certified but my project went right into production.
Because the work was done right.

Well that and management shut down the "mandatory six sigma training". When the gov $ stopped flowing it suddenly wasn't mandatory.

When I hear all those buzzwords...........makes me want to puke.
9 out of 10 times it's somebody who can't do the job.

A hiring manager will pick them up............because they speak the lingo.........and 9 out of 10 hiring managers are nothing but clueless shmucks sucking arse.

 

[Hookeye]

Diff job/place.........got to interact with their top dawg "Master".
Problem showed every spring and fall (environment can't be controlled- affects process).
No controls on other major aspects of process (IMHO).
Summer coming on, he did a 4 hr DOE with 4 inputs (and another employee) and declared a 10% increase in one parameter to SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
That fall, same problem came back.
I don't give a flip how stupid a person is............but when they are arrogant and stupid and act like you're the one that's an idiot..........when you are freaking right (again and again)..........yeah. I refuse to even speak to that type of person. I'll walk away or look past them...........yup, won't even acknowledge their existence.
Life would be easier if HR just hired a tattoo artist and put "dumb*ss" on certain people's foreheads.