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What exactly is a Six Sigma Black Belt? That’s a question you might be asking yourself. Quite frankly, the answer is simple: “Six Sigma is a process that’s focused on cost savings. It helps you identify customer critical problems that can affect the outcome of your business.” More specifically, it reduces defects or errors that are critical to your customer. There are many different variables that can impact the “Cost of Poor Quality” (COPQ). This is another name (in six sigma language) that we give to chronic waste. COPQ is very important because it ultimately distracts you from effectively serving your customers. Often, it affects your company’s performance, overall customer service, revenues, products, and bottom-line results. In a nutshell, Six Sigma can make a big difference in your organization. Several black belts are using their skills to save our company money. My project team applied six sigma principles to business travel processes. As a result, we came up with several recommendations for improvements and cost savings. Our team’s research helped identify ways to reduce expenses and lost time associated with Six Sigma Black Belt - What is It? By LARRY C. PICKETT
business travel. More importantly, the feedback from the project was included as part of our company’s “Strategy for Cost Containment.” Six Sigma is a smarter way to manage a business or a department. It puts the customer first by using facts and data to drive better solutions. As a rule, Six Sigma targets three main areas: Improving customer satisfaction, decreasing the time it takes to do a job, and reducing product defects. Six Sigma is a methodology that uses data and statistical analysis to measure and improve performance. It can be traced all the back to Carl Gauss who introduced the “Normal Distribution Curve” (also known as the bell curve). There are several ways six sigma can be used: Quality control, competitive advantage, return-on-investment (ROI), process improvement, customer satisfaction and long- term sustainability. Okay—so what’s a Black Belt? A black belt is the highest level of training received in the six sigma program. This level is only out ranked by a master black belt (the instructor) who usually conducts the certification process. You might recall the old movie “Karate Kid” where the master instructs the learner using a specific process. Basically, the master teaches the learner how to concentrate on components of the process. In six sigma, that process is known as the DMAIC process. The acronym (DMAIC) stands for Define, Measure,
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