Quality is important whether in health care, manufacturing or aviation. The drive for quality is essential to actually attaining it. Measuring and correcting defects is a major part of the Six Sigma process. Green Belt certification is an important step you can take to show your ability to solve problems that affect the quality of your product or service.
History
The Motorola Corporation gave birth to the use of Six Sigma by corporate America in 1986 when one of their senior engineers, Bill Smith, was looking to standardize the process to measure or count defects in their products and services. Embracing the Six Sigma process resulted in Motorola improving their manufacturing quality, which resulted in their winning the coveted Malcom Baldrige National Quality award in 1988. Today, many large corporations use Six Sigma to assure excellence including 3M, General Electric, Boeing and Citibank.
Considerations
If you are interested in becoming Six Sigma trained and certified, you will need to participate in special classes and pass a certification examination. If you work for a corporation or other employer who is involved in Six Sigma, your employer may offer special training and provide the examination. If not, you can contact training organizations. One well known organization is the American Society for Quality or the ASQ. This organization among others, offers training and testing opportunities that can result in the accomplishment of your Green Belt certification.
Requirements
You must have at least three years of work experience in one or more areas of the core Six Sigma Green Belt Body of Knowledge, according to the American Society for Quality. These areas include; organizational goal setting, definition of Six Sigma, understanding measurements, analysis of data collected and creation of an improvement plan. The certification exam consists of 100 questions based on the core principals. The minimum expectations for Green Belt certification includes working with a Black Belt, an ability to analyze and solve problems, involvement in quality improvement activities, successful participation in a Green Belt project and an ability to demonstrate knowledge of Six Sigma tools and processes.
Cognition
Green Belt certification indicates your ability to think in ways to help solve quality based problems. There are six cognitive expectations for a Green Belt certified individual; the ability to remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create. Creation is the most complex of the cognitive tasks. It is expected that you can bring together various elements of an issue in a manner that identifies a new way of seeing something that did not exist before. It also expects that you are able to analyze gathered data to support a solution to the identified issue.
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