Anyone here work in 6 Sigma?

[gtc]

My company has a 6 Sigma Black Belt position open, and I've been thinking about applying for it.

Anyone with experience working in 6 Sigma have any experiences, good or bad that they'd care to share?

I can't say I'm a big believer in 6 Sigma, but it would be a significant pay bump and a nice bit to add to my resume.

[jluetjen]

If you're "not a believer", I'm not sure if it is the right position for you. Nothing is worse then going to work every day doing something that you don't enjoy.

[red-beard]

Usually, it is a path to upper management. OTOH, most of the companies aren't really applying the principles properly. I've Black-belted at 3 different companies (GE, Solar Turbines, Cooper-Cameron). Lubemaster was a Blackbelt at GE.

[Rednine11]

They like to hire them where I work but when they make suggestions or have ideas it usually gets overruled and never used. After a while they get tired of the beatings and either leave or back off.........In the company i work for it seems like more bragging rights than anything. no offense to anyone intended.

[mjohnson]

Did the coursework twice (weird management issues). The training in my opinion is priceless. The cert -- maybe?. I bailed when our management said "the BBs will go to our process improvement org and solve the world's problems". This came from up on high so I took it seriously - and I didn't get my cert.

Used the training and knowledge for almost a decade. Invaluable for me as a production engineer. Never cashed in as a "BB" though...

Good knowledge base though.

Some of our contractors (the new operators of Allied Signal maybe?) make it into a curse - improve $X/yr, year after year or die... Don't want that action!

[M.D. Holloway]

I was a trained Master Black Belt when at GE. Six Sigma has gone through significant changes over the past 20 years. It used to be almost a cult now it is a production tool.

If you like stats and don't mind being the resisdent geek....go for it.

[JR Indy]

If used correctly, it is a good process and a good tool set to have. Nothing magical about it...it's a lot of common sense with a fair amount of stats thrown it. Focus on the process first, the tools second.

[thencamebronson]

Took the training and worked on a couple of projects. Like most have said, really great for production type processes, and if you like statistics then it is interesting.

[dhoward]

Originally Posted by JR Indy

If used correctly, it is a good process and a good tool set to have. Nothing magical about it...it's a lot of common sense with a fair amount of stats thrown it. Focus on the process first, the tools second.

+1
Unfortunately people try to apply it to everything.

[azasadny]

I was only a 6S greenbelt at Ford, but I worked on a lot of bb projects. What these folks have said is true, at least in my experience.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Originally Posted by gtc

My company has a 6 Sigma Black Belt position open, and I've been thinking about applying for it.

Anyone with experience working in 6 Sigma have any experiences, good or bad that they'd care to share?

I can't say I'm a big believer in 6 Sigma, but it would be a significant pay bump and a nice bit to add to my resume.

Sorry but I don't understand what all this means, do you have to be a qualified Ninja or Jedi Knight to apply ?

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

Sorry but I don't understand what all this means, do you have to be a qualified Ninja or Jedi Knight to apply ?

That was EXACTLY the problem I had with the system. Step 1 should have been to get rid of the hokey names.

[gtc]

Thanks for the insight... i just turned in my application.
My skepticism regarding 6 Sigma comes from a job I had, about 10 years ago, at a small engineering/manufacturing outfit. People were running around trying to apply 6 Sigma to everything, and the results weren't that great. After some recent reading, I think we were just too small of an operation for it to make sense.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by gtc

Thanks for the insight... i just turned in my application.
My skepticism regarding 6 Sigma comes from a job I had, about 10 years ago, at a small engineering/manufacturing outfit. People were running around trying to apply 6 Sigma to everything, and the results weren't that great. After some recent reading, I think we were just too small of an operation for it to make sense.

There are WAYS to use it all the time. But it doesn't mean you are using stat tools for every decision.

I was in Wave 2 at GE, basically the first real roll out of it company wide. At GE, more is always better and they made every exempt employee a greenbelt.

Solar Turbines/Caterpillar had the best program. They built it around large projects and programs and usually the Blackbelt had full control. And the focus was figuring out the problem, not the statistical tools.

They also had a well thought out incentive program with project bonuses, but only after 6 months of actual measured savings!!! If the CAT program had a fault, was that there were no plan to re-integrate the Blackbelts back into regular positions after 24 months.

The GE and Cooper-Cameron focus was on the statistical tools. Too much focus there, not enough on figuring out if a program was a good candidate. I usually killed over half my potential projects because they really weren't 6 Sigma projects.

Like: We are going to make a new compressor. We've been working on this for 2 years. Turn this into a 6 Sigma project.