What Makes a Good Black Belt?

The secret is: the same qualities that make a good engineer!

Oh, no, I spoke too much!

Well, might as well spill the beans. Six Sigma is not anything one does not learn in engineering school (if you were paying attention and not partying at the time). Statistics plays a large role along with solid problem solving skills. Common sense is also another useful trait.

Other than that, is is not voodoo or black magic, but it does look good to companies' resume and investors if XXX number of employees are Six Sigma rated.

GE and Honeywell took this to the extreme (if a little is good, a whole lot must be better) and so was born the Green Belt.

The bottom line is that there is some benefit, but employers should learn that most of the skill set of Six Sigma is already part of the education engineers get in school. Be wise with extra training because Six Sigma training is a franchised business that costs companies big bucks for training and the net gains are not a magic bullet.

My manager wanted me to take the 6 Sigma Black Belt course. I do R&D in a chemical lab, and learned my own way to analyze problems, look at them from different angles, design experiments and make intuitive leaps occasionally. As it was explained to me, they would teach us all the same way to systematically approach problems. I can see that leading to "Lemming-Think", where they all approach a problem the same logical way, see the same things and draw the same conclusions. I usually analyze a problem from the bass-ackwards, upside-down perspective initially, before moving to the "head-on" view. I really freaked the instructor out when I told him I thrived on chaos so much that if I saw a neat, orderly row of encyclopedias, I would pull a couple volumes out , swap them around and put them back upside down. (I was messin' with him :-) !) My manager asked him to put me in the next class and he told him I would set the program back 6 months. One size doesn't fit all.I would use 6-Sigma as a tool by asking assistance from a Black Belt if I needed it, but do not see the need to "be" the tool. I seem to do quite well as is.

Real Six Sigma is geared for manufacturing. R&D has little to do with Six Sigma unless you are using some of the tools, such as design of experiments or a Monte Carlo, but you learned that in college, no?

You're right. It is more for manufacturing and engineering, not R&D. But they thought one size fits all and more black belts looks better. They had a poor management style, and the 6 sigma degree looked good enough on the resume for people to get it and then leave. Since I was considered a "misfit" for my non-conformist views, they laid me off in 2001 and I went on to form my own small business. I'm still paying the bills and having fun and working challenging, exciting projects, so I must be doing something right!

Six Sigma tools can be a good starting point for adding discipline to any process.

rwb

Acromag

www.Acromag.com

I'm sure that statistical design of experiments is a powerful tool. I've never used it. I can see where it would be very useful to determine the exact effects of interactive variables in an established systems, but that's more final development than R+D.

Alright, it pains me to say it, but it could be used successfully in R+D. It just is not my personality. It would seem to suck all the fun out of research. I seem to learn more by the random walk approach. I also take the most plausible approach, and attempt to prove it wrong. It takes an infinite number of experiments to prove something right. It only takes one to prove it wrong. I also do a lot of "there is no reason this should work, so let's try it" type experiments.

Granted, there have been many times where I have reached the "Aha!" moment in a project, and wished that I taken more systematic precise data along the way, because now the tests will have to be repeated. However, I doubt I would have gotten to the aha! moment as quickly, if at all.

'Paid editorial' should really be in commercial space.