Standards for Lean Six Sigma certification

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management Standards for Lean Six Sigma certification Alessandro Laureani Jiju Antony

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Standards for Lean Six Sigma certification Alessandro Laureani and Jiju Antony DMEM, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK

110 Received May 2011 Accepted May 2011

Abstract


Purpose – This paper aims to provide an overview of current Lean Six Sigma certification practices among different industries and organisations and puts forward a public standard. Design/methodology/approach – Survey results, unstructured interviews and secondary information are used to illustrate the existing variation in certification standards across industries and organisations. Findings – The high variation in Lean Six Sigma certification standards makes it very difficult to judge the actual competence of a certified Belt and to evaluate a Lean Six Sigma program in organisations. As such, the need for a globally accepted certification standard is identified, similar to what is already in place for other professions. Originality/value – This paper has a highly practical content for industry practitioners, with the intent of suggesting Lean Six Sigma certification standards be used in organisations, drawing on the best practices from major companies. Keywords Lean, Six Sigma, Certification, Lean production, Standards Paper type Research paper

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management Vol. 61 No. 1, 2012 pp. 110-120 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1741-0401 DOI 10.1108/17410401211188560

Introduction Lean Six Sigma is a business improvement methodology that aims to maximise shareholders’ value by improving quality, speed, customer satisfaction, and costs: it achieves this by merging tools and principles from both Lean and Six Sigma. It has been widely adopted in manufacturing and service industries and its success in some famous organisations (e.g. GE, and Motorola) has created a copycat phenomenon with many organisations across the world willing to replicate the success. This success has also created a vast consultancy and job market for Lean Six Sigma professionals that after being trained in Lean Six Sigma in a company, may decide to change job or start working as independent consultants. However, Lean Six Sigma has no globally accepted standard for certification: the proliferation of schools, organisations and training providers that now offer some level of certification has led to wide variation in assessment criteria, leaving many hiring managers, recruiters and continuous improvement leaders sceptical of external certifications. Some certifications currently existing on the market do not require to prove some technical competence or to show project work: you can indeed pay to attend a small course and get a certificate, without ever actually doing a project. As a consequence, many companies have tried to address those concerns building their own internal certification process, further adding to the confusion. The objective of this paper is to illustrate different certification processes in various companies, highlight the commonalities and propose a standard certification process for Green and Black Belts, that can be widely adopted as industry standard.


Lean Six Sigma and belts Lean and Six Sigma have followed independent paths since the 1980s, when the terms were first hard coded and defined: first applications of Lean were recorded in the Michigan plants of Ford in 1913, and those were then developed to mastery in Japan (within the Toyota Production System), while Six Sigma saw the light in the US (within the Motorola Research Centre): . Lean is a process improvement methodology used to deliver products and services better, faster, and at a lower cost. Womack and Jones (1996) defined it as “a way to specify value, line up value-creating actions in the best sequence, conduct those activities without interruption whenever someone requests them, and perform them more and more effectively. In short, lean thinking is lean because it provides a way to do more and more with less and less – less human effort, less human equipment, less time, and less space – while coming closer and closer to providing customers with exactly what they want.” . Six Sigma is a data driven process improvement methodology used to achieve stable and predictable process results, reducing process variation and defects: Snee (1999) defined it as “a business strategy that seeks to identify and eliminate causes of errors or defects or failures in business processes by focusing on outputs that are critical to customers”. While both Lean and Six Sigma have been used for many years, they did not get integrated until the late 1990s and early 2000s (George, 2002, 2003), and today Lean Six Sigma is recognised as “a business strategy and methodology that increases process performance resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction and improved bottom line results” (Snee, 2010). Lean Six Sigma uses tools from both toolboxes, in order to get the better of the two methodologies, increasing speed while also increasing accuracy. The benefits of Lean Six Sigma in the industrial world (both manufacturing and service) have been widely highlighted in the literature and include (Antony, 2005a,b): . Ensuring services/products conform to what the customer needs (“voice of the customer”). . Removing non-value adding steps (waste) in critical business processes. . Reducing cost of poor quality. . Reducing the incidence of defective products/transactions. . Shortening the cycle time. . Delivering the correct product/service at the right time in the right place. Examples of real benefits in various sectors are illustrated in Table I from Antony et al. (2007). One of the key aspects differentiating Lean Six Sigma from previous quality initiatives is the organisation and structure of the quality implementation functions. In quality initiatives prior to Lean Six Sigma, the management of quality was largely relegated to the production floor and/or, in larger organisations, to some statisticians in the quality department. Lean Six Sigma, instead, introduce a formal organisational infrastructure for different quality implementations roles, borrowing from the word of

Standards for Lean Six Sigma certification 111

Increase radiology throughput and decrease cost per radiology in a hospital (Thomerson, 2001) Poor patient safety due to high medication and laboratory errors (Buck, 2001) Overcrowded emergency department (Revere and Black, 2003) Reduce customer complaints (Roberts, 2004)

Healthcare

Significant errors in a monthly publication for Wall Street investors and traders

Source: Antony et al. (2007)

Miscellaneous

High contract complaints resulted in customer dissatisfaction and high costs Poor delivery performance in a logistics company (Thawani, 2004)

Excessive internal and external call backs plus unacceptable credit processing time (Rucker, 2000) High number of flaws in customer-facing processes (e.g. account opening, payment handling etc.) (www.helpingmakingithappen.com) High returned renewal credit cards per month in a leading bank (Keim, 2001) Excessive market losses on trading errors, high costs associated with electronic order corrections etc. in an investment banking unit (Stusnick, 2005) Financial High administrative costs services (www.executiveonline.co.uk) Unacceptable wire transfer processing time to customers Problems in accounts receivables within an accounting department (www.ssqi.com) Utility services Poor service delivery (www.executiveonline.co.uk)

33 per cent increase in radiology throughput

Benefits

22 per cent reduction in cost per radiology procedure $12 million in savings Reduced time to transfer a patient from the ER to Improved patient safety significantly $600,000/ an inpatient hospital bed year in profit Significant reduction in customer complaints and 10.4 per cent increase in customer satisfaction increase in customer satisfaction 24 per cent decrease in customer complaints Reduction in both internal and external call backs, Reduced internal call backs by 80 per cent reduction in credit processing time Reduced flaws in all customer-facing processes Increased customer satisfaction Improved process efficiency Reduced cycle time by over 30 per cent Significant reduction in the number of returned Defect rate reduced from 13,500 DPMO to 6,000 renewal credit cards DPMO Reduced trading errors significantly Several millions of dollars in savings Reduced costs associated with order corrections, Improved employee morale with the banking unit etc. Reduction in administration costs Savings generated from this project are approximately $75,000/year Reduced wire transfer processing time by 40 per Savings generated from the project are around cent $700,000/year Improved cash flow Annual savings are estimated to be well over $350,000 Improved service delivery Annual savings from the project is of the order of over $1.5 million Reduced the number of complaints after six sigma Complaints reduced from 109 to 55 on average methodology was introduced per year Reduced the number of delayed deliveries Sigma quality level of the process improved from 2.43 (176,000 DPMO) to 3.94 (7,400 DPMO) Improved customer satisfaction and increased market share, resulted in savings of $400,000 (approx.) Reduction in reporting and accounting errors $1.2 million in estimated savings

Significant improvement in radiology throughput and reduction in cost per radiology procedure Reduced medication and laboratory errors

Outcome

112

Banking

Problem

Table I. Benefits of Six Sigma in service organisations

Service


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martial arts the terminology to define hierarchy and career paths (Snee, 2004; Antony et al., 2005c,d; Pande et al., 2000; Harry and Schroeder, 1999; Adams et al., 2003). Coronado and Antony (2002) showed a first comparison of the various roles according to Air Academy Associates, a Six Sigma training and consulting group, as shown in Table II. Over time, as Six Sigma become more successful and its application more spread, with the proliferation of consultancy and training companies, new terms such as “Yellow Belt” and “White Belt” got coined: “The Yellow Belt role was simply created to fill a need for employers who wanted to educate their employees in the Six Sigma implementation strategy that their organisation has chosen, without actually allowing them to be a physical part of it. It was a low-cost, basic overview for the common employee to understand what exactly the company was trying to achieve.” (Setter, 2010). Some companies went further with the introduction of “White Belts” (Harry and Crawford, 2005), a supposedly basic introduction of what Six Sigma is. All these terms (“Black Belt”, “Green Belt”, “Master Black Belt”, “Yellow Belt” and “White Belt”) are in industry being used somehow indiscriminately, without an understanding of the skills and responsibilities, as the training and requirements are mostly tailored to different industries and/or companies. In the literature commonly accepted definitions are: . White Belt: Harry and Crawford (2004) introduced in the literature the concept of white belt: it requires 40 hours training and it has a much narrower focus than the black belt, as it works within a specific work cell, instead than on

Green belts Profile

Technical background Respected by peers

Black belts

Technical degree Respected by peers and management Proficiency in basic and Master of basic and advanced tools advanced tools Role Leads important process Leads strategic, high impact improvement teams process improvement projects Leads, trains and coaches on Change agent tools and analysis Teaches and mentors crossAssists black belts functional team members Typically part-time on a Full-time project leader project Cover gains into £ Training Two three-day sessions with Four one-week sessions with three weeks in-between to one month in-between to apply apply Project review in sessions Project review in second two, three and four session Numbers One per 20 employees (5 per One per 50 to 100 employees cent) (1-2 per cent)


Champions Senior manager Respected leader and mentor of business issues Strong proponent of six sigma who asks the right questions Provides resources and strong leadership for projects Inspires a shared vision Establishes plan and creates infrastructure Develops metrics Converts gain into £ One week champion training Six sigma develop and implementation plan One per business group or major manufacturing site

Sources: Coronado and Antony (2002); Air Academy Associates (1998)

Table II. Comparison of role, profile and training in Six Sigma Belt system

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114

.


.

.

cross-functional projects. A white belt can complete up to 12 projects a year, with the potential financial return of $25k from each project; Yellow Belt: similar to the White Belt described from Harry and Crawford (2004), the Yellow Belt is often used in industry to indicate employees that, take up roles in Six Sigma projects, along their other job responsibilities. Green Belts: are employees that, after receiving approximately 80 hours training, take up roles in Six Sigma projects, along their other job responsibilities. According to Harry and Crawford (2005) they would use many of the same tools as Black Belts, but focus on projects within a single division or location. Black Belts: individuals who have had at least 160 hours of Six Sigma training and who have mastered relatively sophisticated tools and statistical techniques. Black Belts typically work on large projects, that might take few months to complete, with savings up to $300k (Harry and Crawford, 2005) (; Master Black Belts: experienced Black Belts, that have exceeded at project execution, and have practiced for a few years, may move forward to the role of Master Black Belt: a full time practitioner in Six Sigma tool and a mentor to successful Green and Black Belts (Ingle and Roe, 2001)

Often, however, the use of those Lean Six Sigma terms in business and consultancy is not rooted in a proper definition of the skills and responsibilities of those roles (Hoerl, 2001). Overview of current certification practices While in many other professional fields, certification is obtained through a standard set of education, testing and experience requirements, usually administered from a central authority, in the Lean Six Sigma field the specific requirements for certification vary and there is not a central authority. Accordingly to a survey conducted from the professional magazine iSixSigma (Marx, 2008), that saw 1,160 respondents among Lean Six Sigma professionals registered with iSixSigma, the vast majority of them are certified and more than half of the certified received their certification from the company they were working at the time (Figure 1). Six Sigma Certification Bodies like American Society for Quality, International Quality Federation (n.d.) and the British Quality Foundation (n.d.) accounted for less than 15 per cent of overall certifications, showing the vast majority of professionals rely on their company internal certification process. The criteria to achieve the in-house certification vary as well, with 84 per cent of Black Belts saying their company requires an exam for certification, together with two projects completed, with a minimum saving of $181,563 per project on average. Larger companies are much more likely to have their internal certification process, in comparison to smaller companies (77 per cent of companies with revenue of $1 billion or more have one vs 37 per cent of companies with revenue of less than $50 million). Certification requirements at Motorola, DuPont and Microsoft illustrate the difference in requirements at major companies (Marx, 2008): . Exam: while Motorola and Microsoft require an exam for certification, DuPont does not.

Standards for Lean Six Sigma certification


115 Figure 1. Percentage of certified professionals and source of certification, Hathaway, B. (2010)

.

.

Financial savings: while Motorola and DuPont have specific targets for financial savings at Green/Yellow/Black Belt, Motorola has projects specific targets. Training required: the number of days of training for the various level of certifications vary considerable across companies.

Another example is that of GE, whose Six Sigma program and roles have been exhaustively explained in Hoerl (2001): Black Belts in GE are certified after completing a certain number of financially successful projects, typically in the range 5-15. Accordingly to Ingle and Roe (2001), GE has a more structured approach to training Black Belts than does Motorola: GE candidates are told what projects to work on, the training is shorter, and hence more intensive. Motorola’s training, instead, is more flexible, potentially leading to a greater breadth of expertise. Implications for Lean Six Sigma Companies The main consequences of this variety in certification practices are: . Difficulty in comparing the level of preparation of Lean Six Sigma professionals (is a Black Belt certified from Company A the same of a Black Belt certified from Company B?), hence hiring decisions are made more difficult. . Difficulty in comparing effectiveness of Training and Consultancy partners. . The need to build and maintain internal certification process to close the gap due to the lack of standard certification. A new Lean Six Sigma Certification Standard Having reviewed practices in Companies that have answered the iSixSigma survey, the body of knowledge of American Society for Quality (ASQ, 2007), International Quality Federation (IQF) and the British Quality Foundation (BQF), the proposed standard from the Center of Excellence led from Ohio State University – Fisher College of Business (2010), and taken into consideration the effort of the International Academy for Quality (IAQ) we would like to suggest a certification standard composed of three main constituent parts:

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(1) Body of Knowledge (including Exam). (2) Body of Experience (including evidence of projects’ results). (3) Maintaining of certification and re-certification. Although the principles are the same, the requirements for Black Belts and Green Belts are slightly different, to reflect the difference in experience and mastery of tools. Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Standard (1) Body of knowledge: suggestion is to use the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Body of Knowledge, which is already widely adopted and known on the market, and their exam to test mastery of the theory and tools. (2) Body of experience: professionals need to show mastery in implementing actual process improvement: . Leadership role in a minimum of two projects. . Generate either one of the following: – Commercial Organisation: generate economic benefits of at least $100,000 per project – Not-for-profit Organisation: if the project takes place in an organisation with non-financial metrics, the improvement in the metrics has to be at least 30 per cent and it needs to be supported with data and facts. . An executive affidavit from the Organisation where the projects took place would be necessary to demonstrate either of the above. (3) Maintain certification: as Lean Six Sigma skills evolve over time, a Continuing Certification Requirements program should be put in place, modelled from the one of the Project Management Institute (PMI) for Project Management professionals: certified Black Belts need to participate in professional development activities to earn professional development units to maintain their certification. A specific amount of units should be required per three-year certification cycle. Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification Standard (1) Body of knowledge: suggestion is to use the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Body of Knowledge, which is already widely adopted and known on the market, and their exam to test mastery of the theory and tools. (2) Body of experience: professionals need to show mastery in implementing actual process improvement: . Leadership role in a minimum of one project. . Generate either one of the following: – Commercial Organisation: generate economic benefits of at least $25,000 per project – Not-for-profit Organisation: if the project takes place in an organisation with non-financial metrics, the improvement in the metrics has to be at least 10 per cent and it needs to be supported with data and facts.


A management affidavit from the Organisation where the projects took place would be necessary to demonstrate either of the above. (3) Re-certification: as Lean Six Sigma skills evolve over time, re-certification for Green Belt should take place every five years at least.

Standards for Lean Six Sigma certification

The suggested certification provides a more reliable process to measure the capabilities of Black and Green Belts and their ability to effectively lead a process improvement effort.

117

Practical implications and limitations It is arguable that the certification standards may be slightly different based on the industry sector: after all, the tools used in the Manufacturing field can be different from the ones used in Service. However, we believe the actual set of tools and theories in the background of Lean Six Sigma, which ultimately stems from the Quality Management masters like Deming (1982) and Juran (1998), are the same across industries, hence a common Body of Knowledge. The differences in application of the principles should be reflected in the Body of Experience and the type of projects used for certification. Industry needs a certification that (Hathaway, 2010): . is supported by an independent body; . is inclusive of both theory and practice; . is testable and transferable among industries and geographies; . is enforced by academics, industry and consultancies; and we hope the standard suggested in this paper can be utilised to fill the current void. Key findings Some of the key findings were: . A lack of standard certification is putting at stake the credibility of Six Sigma in industry. . the proliferation of new certifications and trainings (e.g. white belts, blue belts) “is mostly designed to expand the product line of training providers” (Setter, 2010). . the Body of Knowledge is founded on the theories and tools developed in decades of progress in the field of Quality Management and, as such, is independent from the industry sector. . the Body of Experience, constituted of evidence of projects work in order to obtain certification, should instead reflect the differences in use of tools among industries, giving the candidate the opportunity to highlight the mastery of the tools achieved on the job. . As in any other discipline, the evolution of the field, and the emphasis on application of the tools is such that only with constant practice can a certified practitioner can retain mastery of the tools: as a result, it is advisable to require practitioners to either re-certify or being involved in professional development activities to retain certification.

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Conclusion It is almost ironic that the field of Lean Six Sigma, where standardisation is a pillar, is lacking a standard for certification: this generates confusion, a parallel industry for certification practices and lack of trust and confidence on the professionals in the field. Throughout the history of Six Sigma first, and now Lean Six Sigma, no one has stepped forward to take the responsibility of setting a standard: currently, there is not a recognised international governing body for Lean Six Sigma, as there is in many other professions (e.g. accountancy, project management, etc . . .). Large corporations created their own internal structure to foster the methodology internally, but have always had little interest in sharing it with other companies, particularly potential competitors; at the same time, a myriad of trainers and consultants have come up to make a profit instilling the methodology to their clients. We believe that, after 25 years of practicing Six Sigma, it is now the time to establish a rigorous standard for training and certification: the objective of this paper has been to put forward a suggestion to fill this void, advancing a public standard, that assembles the best components of currently different practices and takes into account the development of both theory and practice. We hope that making it available for public consumption would drive adoption from companies, that can start applying it internally, and bring uniformity to the certification process. With time, once a critical mass has been achieved, it is possible to envisage the setting up of a governing body to administer and maintain it. References Adams, C., Gupta, P. and Wilson, C. (2003), Six Sigma Deployment, Butterworth-Heinemann, Burlington, MA. Air Academy Associates (1998), Sony: Six Sigma Greenbelt Training, Air Academy Press, Colorado Springs, CO. Antony, J. (2005a), “Assessing the status of Six Sigma in the UK service organisations”, Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Six Sigma, Wroclaw, pp. 1-12. Antony, J. (2005b), “Six Sigma for service processes”, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 234-48. Antony, J., Kumar, M. and Cho, B.R. (2007), “Six Sigma in services organizations: benefits, challenges and difficulties, common myths, empirical observations and success factors”, International Journal of Quality Reliability Management, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 294-311. Antony, J., Kumar, M. and Madu, C.N. (2005c), “Six Sigma in small and medium sized UK manufacturing enterprises: some empirical observations”, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 22 No. 8, pp. 860-74. Antony, J., Kumar, M. and Tiwari, M.K. (2005d), “An application of Six Sigma methodology to reduce the engine overheating problem in an automotive company”, IMechE – Part B, Vol. 219, B8, pp. 633-46. American Society for Quality (ASQ) (2007), “Six Sigma Black Belt Certification: Body of Knowledge”, available at: www.asq.org/certification/six-sigma/bok.html British Quality Foundation (BQF) (n.d.), “Lean Six Sigma Certification”, available at: www.bqf. org.uk/training-workshops/lean-six-sigma-certification Buck, C. (2001), “Application of six sigma to reduce medical errors”, ASQ Congress Proceedings, ASQ, Milwaukee, WI, pp. 239-42.


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Snee, R.D. (2010), “Lean Six Sigma – getting better all the time”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 9-29. Stusnick, D. (2005), “Back to the future”, Quality World Magazine, July, pp. 19-23. Thawani, S. (2004), “Six sigma – strategy for organisational excellence”, Total Quality Management, Vol. 15 Nos 5/6, pp. 655-64. Thomerson, L.D. (2001), “Journey for excellence: Kentucky’s CHC adopts six sigma approach”, ASQ’s 55th Annual Quality Congress Proceedings, pp. 152-8. Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T. (1996), Lean Thinking, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY. About the authors Alessandro Laureani is a statistician, qualified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Project Management Professional Certified, with a strong quantitative background and experience in managing projects in the service industry across multiple countries, focusing on improvements in processes and increasing quality. He has trained over 100 people as Lean Six Sigma Green Belts and Yellow Belts and he is also researching leadership effects on Lean Six Sigma deployment in organizations, as part of his PHD at Strathclyde University. Professor Jiju Antony, Director of the Centre for Research in Six Sigma and Process Improvement (CRISSPE) and Director of Knowledge Exchange within Strathclyde Institute for Operations Management in his 12-year research career, has published more than 175 refereed papers and five textbooks in the area of reliability engineering, design of experiments, Taguchi methods, Six Sigma, total quality management and statistical process control. He has successfully launched the First International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage in August 2004 and has now launched the International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, launched in April 2010 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Professor Antony has been invited several times as a keynote speaker to national conferences on Six Sigma in China, South Africa, The Netherlands, India, Greece, New Zealand, South Africa and Poland. Professor Antony has also chaired the First, Second and Third International Conferences on Six Sigma and First and Second European Research Conferences on Continuous Improvement and Lean Six Sigma. The recent work of Professor Antony includes collaborations with organisations such as Thales Optronics Ltd, Scottish Power, Rolls-Royce, Tata Motors, Bosch, Nokia, GE Domestic Appliances, Scottish Widow, 3M, Land Rover, GE Power Systems, NHS Ayr and Arran, Kwit Fit Financial Services, Clydesdale Bank etc in the development of Six Sigma, Lean and Continuous Improvement programmes within these organisations. He is currently chairing the Six Sigma Cluster for local companies in Scotland and is a Six Sigma certified Black Belt from the American Society for Quality (ASQ). He is on the Editorial Board of over eight international journals and a regular reviewer of five leading international journals in quality, operations and production management. He has trained over 800 people in the last five years as certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belts and Yellow Belts. Jiju Antony is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

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