Six Sigma Courses – Quality Management for Quality Careers

Developed by Motorola, USA in 1981, the Six Sigma is a business management strategy that enjoys a wide influence on industries. Six Sigma talks about improvement of quality of process outputs through the identification and removal of causes of errors or defects to consequently decrease the variability in business processes and manufacturing.

Six Sigma uses quality management and statistical methods to create an infrastructure of experts within an organization. Each Six Sigma project that an organization works on will follow a sequence of methods that have quantified targets (either financial or customer oriented targets) set for them.

The term ‘Six Sigma’ is associated with manufacturing. It is a term specifically used with relation to statistical modeling. Six Sigma rating describes the maturity of processes of manufacturing or the percentage of defect-free products manufactured. A Six Sigma manufacturing process is one in which 99.99966% of all manufactured products are error-free or defect-free. A one-sigma compared to Six Sigma is only 31% defect-free.

A Six Sigma is the goal set by Motorola for all its manufacturing processes and is the byword used for engineering practices to achieve this goal.

Certified Six Sigma Courses are offered in the United States. Certification courses for Green and Black Belts are provided by the American Society for Quality and the Institute of Industrial Engineers. Certifications for Green, Black and Master Black Belts are offered by Motorola companies throughout the globe. Central Certification for Six Sigma Courses is however not available.

Six Sigma Courses will begin with the basic DMAIC and DMADV frameworks – both of which are project technologies to be studied over a 5 phase composition. DMAIC is methodology used for Projects for Improving the existing business processes and DMAVD is methodology use for Projects for Creating new business process designs or products.

The 5-phases of DMAIC include:

  • Defining design goals
  • Measuring the main aspects of design
  • Analyzing data and seeking out cause of defect
  • Optimization of current process
  • Controlling future processes to ensure no defects occur. This is done by arresting deviations from target before they occur.

The DMAVD process includes:

  • Design goal definition
  • Identifying and measuring the aspects that are ‘critical to quality’
  • Analysis and development of design alternatives
  • Designing, improving, planning and verification of design
  • Implementation of the production process

Having qualified in Six Sigma Courses, professionals can land jobs as:

  • Executive Leaders like the CEO or top management executives that are responsible for Six Sigma implementation.
  • Champions who act as Black Belts or Mentors responsible for Six Sigma implementation in an integrated manner.
  • Master Black Belts who assist Champions and provide guidance to Black and Green Belts. They act as coaches on Six Sigma application across the organization.
  • Black Belts that focus on execution of Six Sigma projects operating under Master Black Belts.
    Green Belts who operate under Black Belts.
  • Yellow Belts who work with Black Belts and are trained in the basic Six Sigma management tools.

There are also Free Six Sigma Courses available online that provide students with a basic knowledge of Six Sigma applications and tools.