Businesses and professionals constantly search for a competitive edge in a fast-paced marketplace. For organizations, Lean Six Sigma is a methodology that offers proven tools and techniques that can lead to more efficient operations and fewer errors and defects in products and services. Professionals who understand how Lean Six Sigma works and can apply its principles successfully can bring business value and improve their job marketability. The journey toward becoming a process improvement practitioner typically starts by completing Six Sigma Yellow Belt training.
The belt system in Six Sigma represents the level of knowledge a person has attained in the methodology. A Yellow Belt is generally the entry-level belt, providing knowledge about the essential terms, concepts and tools used in methodology. Yellow Belt training is often a stepping stone to earning a Green Belt, the next belt level designation.
Individuals who enroll in a Yellow Belt program should consider it an investment in themselves and their careers. Yellow Belt training involves learning how to identify process improvement issues by uncovering the root causes of those problems and contributing to process changes that can lead to better results.
What Is Lean Six Sigma?
Lean Six Sigma combines two proven methodologies designed to create better business outcomes. Lean aims to streamline operations and eliminate waste. Six Sigma focuses on reducing the process variabilities that lead to errors and defects in products or services.
Lean maximizes customer value while minimizing waste. Everything involved in Lean starts with the idea that a business process only exists to create value for customers. Those that don’t add value are eliminated. Lean practitioners look for areas of waste in eight key areas, which collectively can be referred to by the acronym DOWNTIME:
- Defects
- Overproduction
- Waiting
- Non-utilized talent
- Transportation
- Inventory
- Motion
- Excessive processing
Six Sigma improves product quality by identifying and eliminating variations that lead to defects and errors in products and services. Six Sigma strives to achieve a level of quality that is defined as 3.4 defects per million opportunities.
The holistic approach of Lean Six Sigma allows organizations to improve operational efficiency while ensuring they are taking the best possible steps to meet customer demand.
Who Is a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt?
A Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt understands the foundational elements of the methodology. They typically serve as a team member on a process improvement project led by a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. A Yellow Belt understands basic Lean Six Sigma vocabulary and how to apply certain ideas and techniques in a supportive role.
Two of the foundational concepts learned in a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt program are the principles of Lean and DMAIC, the most frequently used methodology in Six Sigma, which stands for define, measure, analyze, improve and control.
The Principles of Lean
Virtually every tool and technique in Lean focuses on optimizing processes and eliminating waste. The Principles of Lean provide an overview of what drives a Lean approach. There are five that are considered the foundational principles of Lean.
Value: Organizations must deliver what is considered valuable from the customer’s perspective. After identifying what customers value, everything that does not add to that value is eliminated.
Value Stream: By analyzing and mapping the entire value stream, organizations can eliminate bottlenecks and non-value-adding activities. The analysis should include every activity and process needed to deliver a product or service.
Flow: Once an organization has mapped the value stream and eliminated waste, it can create a continuous and smooth flow of work. This flow focuses on minimizing interruptions and delays, as well as using batch processing to ensure work moves efficiently from one step to the next. It also avoids unnecessary waiting and inventory buildup.
Pull: This concept involves establishing a system where work occurs based on customer demand. Organizations focus on producing only what the customer needs, when they need it. This helps reduce excess inventory and the risk of overproduction.
Perfection: This concept is key for long-term success. Organizations should continuously improve and perfect every process, product and service. By encouraging a culture of continuous learning and problem-solving, businesses do a better job of identifying and eliminating waste and inefficiencies.
Six Sigma’s DMAIC Methodology
DMAIC provides a five-phase framework to guide a process improvement project from start to completion. DMAIC is used to improve existing processes, not for creating new ones. The five phases are as follows.
Define: Define the problem that needs to be addressed and the people it impacts. Typical problems include repeated mistakes or errors in a process or not meeting customer needs with a product or service.
Measure: Collect data to establish a baseline upon which the organization can improve. This is the “where are we now?” phase. It includes collecting data on every aspect of the process involved with the defined problem.
Analyze: By analyzing the collected data, project teams can search for the root cause of the problem. This can sometimes lead to discovering several root causes that need to be controlled or changed that lead to a better outcome.
Improve: Teams address the root causes of the problems, eliminating variability, errors, and waste and improving customer satisfaction. The changes involved in correcting the root causes must ensure that the new result will meet organizational goals.
Control: Teams create process controls that ensure improvements in an operation are sustainable.
What Are the Benefits of Earning a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt?
Completing Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt training offers many benefits, both for employees and their organizations.
For professionals, a Yellow Belt education provides foundational knowledge of Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques. It equips students with the knowledge to participate in improvement projects and contribute to their success. This may help make them more sought-after by employers who value process improvement and efficiency and further progression into advanced Lean Six Sigma practices can lead to opportunities for career growth.
Lean Six Sigma knowledge is especially valuable in a marketplace where there is constant pressure to do more with less across every industry.
For organizations, having employees with a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt can lead to significant improvements. They include efficient processes, cost savings, better product quality and more satisfied customers. That ultimately leads to better profits.
What Do You Learn in a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Program?
The four-week, online Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Certificate program from SMU Continuing and Professional Education teaches the underlying principles of Lean and Six Sigma and how the DMAIC methodology is used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of organizational processes. Students are taught the five Lean principles, the importance of efficiency, and the Lean tools to eliminate waste.
Students will also become familiar with concepts such as poka-yoke, Kaizen events, the differences between Lean and Six Sigma, the roles you may encounter in Lean Six Sigma and the critical success factors for process improvement projects.